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JOANNES  DUNS  SCOTUS,  O.  F.  M. 
DOCTOR  SUBTILIS 


Franciscans 

and  the 

Protestant  Revolution 

In  England 


BY 

FRANCIS  BORGIA  STECK,  O.  F.  M. 


Franciscan  Herald  Press 
Chicago,   UUnois 


Imprimi  permittitur. 


Nihil   Obstat. 


Imprimatur. 


SAMUEL  MACKE,  O.  P.   M. 

Minister  Provincialis. 


P.   L.  BIERMANN, 
Censor  Librorum. 


+  GEORGIUS  GULIELMUS   MUNDELEIN, 

Archiepiscopus  Chicagiensis. 
Die  2.     Martii,  1920, 


COPYRIGHT,    1920,    FRANCISCAN    HERALD    PRE-SS. 


CONTENTS 

Foieword. 

PART  FIRST 

CHAPTEE  I 

INTRODUCTORY 

PAGE 

Fr.  William  of  Englaiul,  a  disciple  of  St.  Francis — The  first 
Franciscans  arrive  in  England:  Fr.  Agnellus  of  Pisa  and  his 
eight  companions — The  first  friaries:  Canterbury,  London, 
Oxford,  Northampton,  Cambridge — Marvelous  exjiansion  of  the 
province — Character  of  the  English  Franciscans — Influence  with 
tlie  masses — In  the  service  of  State  and  Church 1 

CHAPTER  II 
CAI.M  BEFORi:  THE  STORM 

Early  reign  of  Henry  VIII — Eeligious  conditions  in  Eng- 
land— Attitude  toward  papal  supremacy — The  king,  a  dutiful 
child  of  the  Church — The  reform  movement  in  the  Order  of  St. 
Francis — Its  bearing  on  the  Province  of  England — The  king 
well  dis]iosed  toward  the  Franciscans -" 

CHAPTER  III 
FIRST  RUMBLINGS   OP   THE   STORM 

Henry  seeks  divorce  from  Catherine  of  Aragon — He  repudi- 
ates her  and  marries  Anne  Boleyn — The  Franciscans  and  the 
king's  "secret  affair" — Fr.  William  Peyto  publicly  rebukes 
the  king  and  his  court — Fr.  John  Elstow  and  Dr.  Curwin — The 
two  friars  before  the  king — Banished 35 

CHAPTER  IV 
OUTBREAK  OF  THE   STORM 

Henry's  divorce  and  the  question  of  papal  supremacy — 
The  crisis — The  king  usurps  spiritual  supremacy  over  the  Church 
in  England — Meets  with  opposition  from  Franciscans — Con- 
templates rigorous  measures  against  them — A  favorable  oppor- 
tunitv — Elizabeth  Baa-ton,  the  Holy  Maid  of  Kent — Her  revela- 
tions' :ni(l  the  king's  divorce — Two  of  her  adherents:  FF. 
Richard  Risby  and  Hugh  Rich— The  "public  penance"— Two 
friars  defend  the  Pope's  spiritual  supremacy — Accused  of  high 
treason— The  first  martyrs  for  the  faith 44 

CHAPTER  V 
RAGING  OF  THE  STORM,  1534-1536 
Franciscans  continue  to  oppose  the  king's  divorce  and  his 
usurped  supremacy — Fr.  Pecock 's  sermon — First  steps  toward 
the  suppression  of  their  province — Cromwell,  viceregent  and 
vicar  general — Hilsey  and  Browne,  "grand  visitors"  of  all 
mendicant  friars — Their  instructions — They  visit  the  Francis- 
cans at  Richmond  and  Greenwich — Visitation  at  Southampton — 
Loyalty  of  the  friars — All  Franciscans  arrested  and  imprisoned 
— Their  friaries  in  the  hands  of  the  king — Some  released  from 
prison  and  banished — Many  succumb  to  hardships  of  prison  life. 


nn777t 


52 


CHAPTER  YI 

RACINQ  OP  THE  STORM  (CONTXNUES),  1536-1538         PAGE 

Bisafifcction  among  the  people — The  Pilgrimage  of  Grace — 
Share  of  the  Franciscans  in  the  northern  rising — Renewed  hos- 
tilities against  them-^Three  Franciscan  martyrs:  Ven.  Antony 
Brookby,  Yen.  Tliomas  Cort,  Yen.  Thomas  Belchiam 65 

CHAPTER  VII 

BI.£SS1:D   THOMAS  MOBE,  FRANCISCAN  TERTIARV 

Early  youth — At  Oxford — Professional  studies — With  the 
Carthusians — More's  public  and  private  life — The  impending 
storm — He  resigns  the  chancellorship — Poverty  and  distress  at 
Chelsea — Efforts  of  Anne  Boleyn  and  Cromwell  to  ruin  the  ex- 
chancellor — Measures  of  the  king  against  liim — More  rejects 
the  Acts  of  Succession  and  of  Supremacy — In  the  Tower — His 
loyalty  put  to  severe  tests — Brought  to  trial — Found  guilty  of 
high  treason  and  sentenced  to  death- — His  last  days  in  prison.  .  .      75 

CHAPTER  YIII 

CATHERINE   OF   ARAGON,  FRA.NCISCAN  TERTIARY 

The  Spanish  princess — Departure  for  England — Sudden 
death  of  Prince  Arthur^  lier  consort- — She  marries  his  brother 
Henry — Eighteen  years  of  marital  happiness — The  king's  in- 
fidelity— The  divorce  question — Catherine  and  the  papal  com- 
mission— Before  the  ecclesiastical  court  at  Blackfriars — The 
queen's  appeal  to  Rome  admitted — Henry  retaliates — Catherine 
insulted  and  disowned — Her  secluded  life  at  the  More — At 
Buckden — At  Kimbolton  Castle — Bodily  and  mental  suffering — 
Royal  Supremacy — Within  sight  of  the  scaffold — Her  Inst  illness 
and  violent  death — An  estimate  of  her  character 104 

CHAPTER  IX 

BI.ESSED  JOHN  FOREST,  O.  F.  M. 

Birth  and  parentage — Enters  the  Franciscan  Order — Doctor 
of  Oxford — ^Provincial  of  England — Espouses  the  queen 's  cause 
— Fr.  Richard  Lyst,  traitor  and  spy — ^Blessed  Forest  and  the 
king — Attempt  to  remove  Forest  from  the  provincialship — 
Staunch  advocate  of  papal  supremacy — Imprisoned,  tried,  con- 
demned to  death — Martyrdom  delayed — With  the  Conventuals 
in  London — Entrapped  in  the  confessional — Before  the  Privy 
Council — Once  more  in  Newgate — Tried  for  heresy — His  alleged 
submission — The  friar  and  the  bishop — -The  martyr  suspended 
over  a  slow  fire — Dreadful  torture  and  death 138 

CHAPTER  X 

DEATH  ANB   DESTRUCTION,   1538-1547 

Renewed  measures  against  the  Franciscans — Three  martyrs: 
FF.  Antony  Brown,  John  Waire,  and  Hemmysley — The  Con- 
ventual friars — Their  poverty — During  the  first  years  of  the  re- 
ligious upheaval — The  royal  visitors — Wholesale  robbery  and 
vandalism — Subsequent  lot  of  the  Conventual  houses  and  of  the 
ejected  friars 169 


CHAPTER  Xr 
DIVINE    RETRIBUTION,    1547-1558  P  \^'K 

Last  days  of  Hoiiry  VIII — Remorse  and  despair — His  death 
— ^Thc  prophecy  of  Fr.  I'eyto  fulfilled — Reign  of  Edward  VI — 
Efforts  to  introduce  Lutherauism — Further  confiscation  and 
spoliation  of  religious  houses — The  ''Fnnus  Scoti  et  Scotis- 
tarum"  at  Oxford — Reign  of  Mary  the  Catholic — England  re- 
unitetl  with  the  Church  of  Rome — Franciscans  again  at  Green- 
wich, London,  and  Southampton — Their  activity  and  influence 
— Death  of  the  qneen 1 8.'> 

CHAl^TER  XII 
UNDER  THE  I.AST  TUDOR,  1558-1603 

Queen  Elizalieth's  perlidy — Exconniiunicated  by  the  Pope — 
The  persecution  against  Catholics  revived — Queen  Elizabeth 
and  the  Franciscans — The  friars  expelled  and  banished — One  of 
the  exiles,  a  martyr — Fr.  John  Storrens  martyred  in  1.172 — Ven- 
erable Godfrey  Buckley,  0.  F.  M. — At  first  a  secular  priest — 
Joins  the  Franciscans  in  Rome — On  the  English  mission — -Seized 
and  imprisoned — Ti'ieil  and  condemned  to  death  for  being  a 
priest    194 


PART  SECOND 

CHAPTER  I 
THE   SECOND  ENGIiISH  PROVINCE 

Its  founder:  Fr.  John  Gennings — His  remarkable  conver- 
sion from  Protestantism — Priest  and  missionary  in  England — 
He  enters  the  Franciscan  Order — First  steps  toward  the  restora- 
tion of  the  English  Province — Action  of  the  general  chapter 
in  its  behalf — A  friary  erected  at  Douai  in  Flanders — The  prov- 
ince canonically  established- — Fr.  John  Gennings,  the  first  pro- 
vincial— Franciscan  missions  in  England — Extent  of  the  ]irov- 
incc  before  1649 — Character  of  the  friars — Their  activity 215 

CHAl'TER  IT 
VENERABI.E    WII.I.IAM  WARD,   FRANCISCAN   TERTIARY 

Troublous  reign  of  Charles  I — Puritan  animosity  against 
"Papists" — William  Ward^  a  Protestant  at  Oxford — Returns 
to  the  old  faith — Ordained  priest — Seized  on  his  return  to  Eng- 
land— Three  years  in  prison — Thirty  years  of  unceasing  toil  and 
hardship — A  true  follower  of  St.  Francis — In  Newgate  for  being 
a  priest — Sentenced  to  death — Martyred  at  Tyburn 2.'}2 

CHAPTER  III 
FR.    CHRISTOPHER   COIiMAN,   O.  T.  M. 

Of  Catholic  parentage — Student  at  the  Jesuit  College  in 
Douai — Returns  to  England — The  Catholic  gentleman — Joins 
the  Franciscans  in  Douai — Ordained  priest — Summoned  to  Eng- 
land— Arrested  and  released — Missionary  labors — The  persecu- 
tion revived — Fr.  Christopher  one  of  the  first  to  be  seized — In 
Newgate — Condemned  to  death- — Execution  delayed  and  pre- 
vented by  the  war — Sufferings  and  death  in  prison 241 


CHAPTER  IV 
VESrERABIii:  JOKir  BAPTIST  BUX>I.AK£B,  O.  F.  M.        PAGS 

.Studies  with  the  Jesuits  ut  Saiiit-Oiuer  and  at  A'aHadoiid — 
Desires  to  become  a  Franeist-au — Enters  the  Order — Novitiate 
and  years  of  study— Joins  the  English  Province — Departs  for 
England — Arrested  and  imprisoned  at  Plj'mouth — In  Exeter  jail 
— Before  the  judges — Conveyed  to  London  for  trial — Liberated 
— Twelve  years  of  missionary  labors — Betrayed  and  captured 
while  saying  Mass — Court  proceedings  against  him — Martyrdom 

at  Tyburn   '. 251 

CHAPTER   \' 
VBNBRAEIiB  FAUI.  HBATK,  O.  F.  M. 

Of  Protestant  [larcntiige — student  at  Cambridge — Religious 
doubts — Conversion — Enters  the  Franciscan  Order  at  Douai — 
Novitiate  and  years  of  study — Esteemed  by  the  brethren — ^The 
scholar — The  priest — The  religious — Eager  to  join  the  English 
missionaries — Permission  linally  granted — Arrives  in  London — 
In  Compter  prison — Before  the  mayor  and  the  commissioners  of 
parliament — In  Newgate — Before  the  judges — Martyred  at  Ty- 
burn       -72 

<'11APTER  VI 
VBNBBABI.B   FRANCIS  BBI.,   O.  F.  M. 

Of  Aveathy  Catholic  parents — Student  at  Saint-Omer  and  at 
Valladolid — Ordained  priest — Seeks  admission  into  the  Fran- 
ciscan Order — Novitiate  and  profession — Summoned  to  the 
English  Province — Priestly  zeal  in  Flanders — -Provincial  of 
Scotland — Missionary  in  England— His  character — Arrested  as 
a  royal  spy — Suspected  of  being  a  priest — Conveyed  to  London 
for  trial — Before  the  commissioners  of  parliament — In  New- 
gate— Condemned  to   death — Martyrdom 292 

CHAT'TER   VII 
VBNBBABI.B  MABTIN  WOODCOCK,  O.  F.  M. 

His  Protestant  fatlier  and  Cathulic  mother — He  embraces 
the  old  faith — Student  at  Saint-Omer  and  at  Rome — Joins  the 
Capuchins  in  Paris — Dismissed  from  the  Order — Serious  doubts 
regarding  his  vocation — Received  into  the  Franciscan  Order  in 
Douai — Ordained  priest — Longs  to  join  the  missionaries  in 
England — Permission  at  last  granted — Arrested  on  arriving  in 
England — -Sufferings  in  prison— Before  the  judges — Martyrdom.  ;U1 
CHAPTER  ^'III 
CONCI.USION 

Reign  of  Cliarles  II — -Peace  and  prosperity — Death  of  Fr. 
John  Gennings  —  Activity  and  influence  of  the  friars- — The 
Maryland  Mission — Franciscans  and  tJie  Titus  Oates  Plot — Two 
martyrs:  Ven.  Fr.  John  Wall  and  Yen.  Fr.  Charles  Mahony — 
Four  die  in  prison — Ominous  signs — Fall  of  King  James  II — 
Franciscans  forced  to  flee  to  the  continent — Many  of  their  num- 
licr  seized  and  imprisoned — Peace  restored — The  province  at  the 
lifiglit  of  jirosperity — Two  Franciscans  die  in  prison:  FF.  Paul 
Atkinson  and  Germanus  Holms — Decline  of  the  province — Sub- 
versive State  laws — The  French  Revolution— Franciscans  flee  to 
England  —  Their   number   gradually    decreases  —  The    province 

canonically  dissolved 323 

Bibliography .'535 

Index-   of   Xamt's   iind    I'la.-cs 339 


DEDICATED 

to  the 

Sacred  Memory 

of 

VENERABLE  JOHN  DUNS  SCOTUS, 

the 

Most  Illustrious  Member 

of  the 

First  Province 

of 

English  Franciscans 


PART  FIRST 

UNDER  THE  TUDORS 

1509-1603 


FOREWORD 

~  In  the  following  pages,  an  attempt  is  made  to  relate  the 
story  of  the  English  Franciscans  during  the  first  century  of 
the  Protestant  Revolution.  Among  the  causes  commonly 
assigned,  even  by  Catholic  historians,  for  the  rapid  spread 
of  Protestantism  in  Europe  is  the  inactivity  and  degeneracy 
of  the  so-called  old  Orders  at  the  time  when  the  conflict 
began.  This  serious  charge  loses  much  of  its  significance  if 
we  remember  that  for  forty  years  these  old  Orders  bore  the 
brunt  of  the  attack  against  the  overwhelming  forces  of  the 
enemy.  The  fact,  too,  that  more  than  150  members  of  these 
old  Orders  played  a  prominent  role  in  the  Council  of  Trent 
shows  that  their  laxism  and  indifference  could  not  have  been 
so  great  after  all.  As  to  the  Franciscan  Order  in  particular, 
it  may  suffice  to  call  to  mind  that  of  the  above-mentioned 
150  religious  85  were  sons  of  St.  Francis,  and  that,  further- 
more, between  the  years  1520  and  1620,  more  than  500 
Franciscans  shed  their  blood  for  the  faith  in  the  various 
countries  of  Europe. 

To  disprove  the  above  charge  in  the  case  of  the  Fran- 
ciscans in  England,  and  at  the  same  time  to  afford  whole- 
some reading  for  all  admirers  of  St.  Francis  and  his  Order, 
the  present  volume  is  placed  before  the  public.  As  history 
clearly  testifies,  the  popular  mind  of  England  in  the  be- 
ginning of  the  religious  upheaval  was  deeply  imbued  with 
the  truly  Catholic  spirit  of  the  great  Saint  of  Assisi.  And 
perhaps  nowhere  at  the  time  were  his  followers  of  the  First 
Order  so  highly  esteemed  by  all  classes  of  society  as  in 
England.  They  enjoyed  the  confidence  of  the  king  not  less 
than  of  the  masses.  Their  life  and  activity  were  intimately 
bound  up  with  the  affairs  of  the  higher  circles  and  with  the 


FOREWORD 

needs  and  aspirations  of  the  lower  classes.  The  former 
sought  their  favor  and  support,  while  the  latter  looked  to 
them  for  guidance  and  consolation. 

The  writer  has  endeavored  to  recount  their  labors  and 
sufferings  for  the  Catholic  faith  in  England  in  a  popular 
way  and  with  due  regard  to  the  postulates  of  modern  his- 
torical criticism.  "Without  claiming  this  to  be  the  first 
treatment  of  the  subject  in  English,  he  would  designate  as 
the  special  feature  of  his  work  the  fact  that  it  is  a  critical 
compilation  of  practically  everything  so  far  written  on  this 
matter.  From  the  bibliography  the  reader  can  form  an 
idea  of  the  time  and  labor  expended  in  gathering,  sifting, 
and  arranging  the  available  material.  The  writer  shall 
deem  himself  amply  rewarded  for  his  pains  if  his  work,  be 
it  ever  so  imperfect,  will  help  to  make  better  known  one  of 
the  many  glorious  chapters  of  the  history  of  the  Order  to 
which  he  has  the  privilege  of  belonging. 

Feast  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  October  4,  1919. 

F.  B.  S. 


CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTORY 

Fr.  William  of  England,  a  disciple  of  St.  Francis — The 
first  Franciscans  arrive  in  England:  Fr.  Agnellus  of 
Pisa  and  Jiis  eight  companions — The  first  friaries: 
Canterbury,  London,  Oxford,  Northampton,  Cambridge 
— Marvelous  expansion  of  the  province — Character  of 
the  English  Franciscans — Two  remarkable  features  re- 
garding the  development  of  the  province — Influence  with 
the  masses — In  the  service  of  State  and  Church — In  the 
field  of  letters. 

To  realize  the  terrible  calamity  that  befell  the  English 
Franciscans  during  the  first  century  of  the  Protestant  Revo- 
lution, the  reader  must  know  something  of  their  history 
prior  to  the  outbreak  of  the  storm.  For  this  reason,  we  shall 
devote  the  first  chapter  of  our  narrative  to  an  account  of 
their  arrival  on  English  soil  and  of  the  subsequent  develop- 
ment and  activity  of  the  province.  Though  necessarily 
brief  and  incomplete,  it  will  show  how,  throughout  the  cen- 
turies, the  sons  of  St.  Francis,  by  their  sanctity  and  learn- 
ing as  well  as  by  their  zeal  for  the  spiritual  and  temporal 
welfare  of  the  realm,  enjoyed  the  confidence  of  the  English 
nation,  so  that  in  the  beginning  of  the  upheaval  they  were 
the  most  popular  and  influential  religious  in  England. 

Among  the  first  disciples  and  companions  of  St.  Francis 
was  Fr.  William,  an  Englishman  by  birth.^  He  was  esteemed 
by  his  brethren  both  for  his  learning  and  for  his  extraor- 
dinary piety.     His  soul  had  deeply  imbibed  the  spirit  of 

1.  The  Martyrologium  Franciscanum  of  Fr.  Arturus  commemorates 
him  on  March  7,  in  these  terms  :  "At  Assisi  in  Umbria,  Blessed  William, 
Confessor,  a  man  of  extraordinary  perfection,  who  for  his  sanctity  and 
miracles  was  widely  known  in  life  and  after  death." 


2  FRANCISCANS  AND 

'  thft  Seraphic  Father,  and  it  was  very  likely  owing  to  his 
burning  zeal  for  immortal  souls,  that  the  newly  founded 
Franciscan  Order  found  its  way  to  England.  During  the 
second  general  chapter,  which  was  held  at  Whitsuntide,  in 
1219,  at  Our  Lady  of  the  Angels,  or  Porziuncola,  near 
Assisi,  Fr.  William  petitioned  St.  Francis  to  let  also  Eng- 
land share  the  blessings  of  his  new  foundation.  Accord- 
ingly, the  Saint  directed  Blessed  Agnellus  of  Pisa,  who  was 
then  custos  of  the  French  Franciscans  and  guardian  of  the 
friary  in  Paris,  to  undertake  the  expedition  to  England. 
He  vested  him  with  the  authority  of  provincial  and  drew 
up  an  obedience  which  read : 

To  Brother  Agnellus  of  Pisa  of  the  Tuscan  Province  of  the 
Order  of  Minors,  Brother  Francis  of  Assisi,  Minister  General, 
though  unworthy,  salutation.  By  the  merit  of  wholesome  obedience, 
I  command  thee  to  go  to  England  and  there  to  exercise  the  office  of 
Minister  Provincial.     Farewell.^ 

Trusting  in  Divine  Providence  and  fortified  with  the 
blessing  of  his  holy  Father,  Blessed  Agnellus  accompanied 
by  eight  friars  set  out  for  the  new  mission  field.  Of  his 
companions,  Fr.  Richard  of  Ingworth  was  a  priest,  Fr. 
Richard  of  Devonshire  a  cleric  in  minor  orders,  and  Fr. 
William  of  Esseby  a  youthful  but  very  pious  novice ;  these 
three  were,  like  their  leader,  Englishmen  by  birth.  The 
other  five  selected  for  the  expedition  were  lay  brothers ;  viz., 
FF.  Henry  of  Cervise,  Lawrence  of  Beauvais,  William  of 
Florence,  Melioratus,  and  James  Ultramontanus.^  After 
staying  a  few  months  with  their  brethren  in  France,  the 
little  band  of  nine  friars  continued  their  journey  to  Nor- 
mandy and  received  a  hearty  welcome  from  the  monks  of 
Fescamp.     Supplied  by  these  with  the  necessary  means, 

2.  In  his  Atinales  Minonim  (an.  1219,  num.  32),  Wadding  remarks 
that  as  a  perpetual  memorial  of  the  founding  of  the  English  Province,  the 
Franciscan  friary  of  Mount  La  Verna  at  his  time  preserved  a  picture  of 
Blessed  Agnellus  of  Pisa  holding  his  obedience  in  his  hands.  The  saintly 
fi'iar  died  in  1232  (1233)  ;  he  was  enrolled  among  the  Blessed  by  Pope 
Leo  XIII.     The  Franciscan  Order  celebrates  his  feast  on  May  7. 

3.  Eccleston,  Liber  de  Adventu  Minorum  in  Angliam  in  Analecta  Fran- 
dscana.  Vol.  I,  p.  218. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION 


Bl.  Agnellus  of  Pisa 


4  FRANCISCANS  AND 

they  embarked  for  Dover  in  Kent,  where  they  landed,  prob- 
ably on  May  3,  1220.*  Thence  they  proceeded  to  Canter- 
bury, about  ten  miles  northwest,  and  knocked  on  the  portals 

4.  Historians  do  not  agree  as  to  the  date  of  the  arrival  of  the  first 
Franciscans  in  England.  Eccleston,  a  member  of  the  Order  who  lived 
about  the  year  1340,  says  that  they  arrived  on  September  10,  1224.  "In 
the  year  of  the  Lord  1224,"  he  begins  his  narrative,  "in  the  time  of  the 
Lord  Pope  Honorius,  namely  in  the  same  year  in  which  the  Rule  of  St. 
Francis  was  approved  by  him,  in  the  eighth  year  of  the  Lord  King  Henry, 
son  of  John,  on  Tuesday  after  the  feast  of  the  Nativity  of  the  Blessed 
Virgin,  which  that  year  fell  on  Sunday,  the  Friars  Minor  first  arrived  in 
England."  The  precision  and  accuracy  with  which  the  statement  is  made 
(September  8,  the  day  of  the  feast,  was  actually  a  Sunday  in  1224)  would 
settle  the  question  once  for  all,  as  it  did  for  Leland,  Wood,  and  most  Eng- 
lish historians,  were  it  not  that  other  writers  of  repute  and  a  number  of 
indirect  evidences  speak  against  the  date.  Thus  Wadding  Annales 
Minorum  (an.  1220,  num.  58)  maintains  that  the  first  friars  arrived  on 
May  3,  1220,  adducing  Marianus  of  Florence  (d.  1537)  as  his  authority. 
Others  who  a.ssign  the  year  1220  are  Matthew  Paris  (d.  1259),  Marcus  of 
Lisbon  (d.  1591),  Francis  Harold  (d.  16S5),  and  Parkinson  (d.  1728). 
Some  historians  assert  that  the  friars  arrived  about  four  years  after  the 
coronation  of  King  Henry  III.  Thereby  they  by  no  means  settle  the  ques- 
tion, because  the  King  was  crowned  twice,  in  1216  and  in  1220.  Matthew 
Paris,  who  lived  In  England  at  this  time  as  chronologist  of  the  King, 
declare-s,  under  the  year  1243,  that  the  Franciscans  "began  to  build  their 
first  habitations  scarce  four  and  twenty  years  ago  (See  Parkinson,  Antiqui- 
ties of  the  English  Franciscans,  p.  6).  Again,  in  12G0,  St.  Bonaventure 
drew  up  an  oflicial  list  of  the  provinces  till  then  founded  in  the  Order,  in 
which,  apparently  observing  the  order  of  their  foundation,  he  places  among 
those  on  this  side  of  the  Alps  the  one  in  France  first  and  the  one  in  England 
second  (See  Annales  Minorum,  an.  1260,  num.  14).  This  seems  to  show,  as 
Parkinson  points  out  (ibidem,  p.  7),  that  the  Order  had  a  province  in 
England  before  1221,  since  that  year  others  were  erected.  Furthermore, 
in  Glassberger's  Chronica  (Analecta  Franciscana,  Vol.  II),  we  read  on  page 
28:  "At  the  general  chapter  which  was  held  that  same  year  (1223)  at 
St.  Mary  of  Porziuncola,  Fr.  Caesarius  was  relieved  of  his  ofiice  as  minis- 
ter (provincial  of  Germany),  which  he  had  held  for  two  years,  and  Ft. 
Albert  of  Pisa,  who  had  just  returned  from  England,  was  appointed  in  his 
stead."  (See  also  Parkinson,  ibidem,  pp.  11,  65.)  Finally,  we  find  that 
in  two  instances  Eccleston  apparently  contradicts  his  statement  as  to  the 
arrival  of  the  first  friars  in  England.  Regarding  Fr.  Lawrence  of  Beauvais, 
one  of  the  companions  of  Blessed  Agnellus,  he  relates  the  following  (Anct- 
lecta  Franciscana,  Vol.  I,  p.  219)  :  "He  in  the  beginning  (of  the  province) 
labored  unceasingly  according  to  the  Rule  ;  and  having  later  returned  to 
Blessed  Francis,  he  merited  frequently  to  see  him  and  to  be  consoled  by 
his  conversations ;  finally,  the  holy  Father  most  freely  gave  him  his  tunic, 
and  having  delighted  him  with  his  sweetest  blessing  sent  him  back  to  Eng- 
land." Now,  St.  Francis  died  on  October  3,  1226.  Hence,  if  Fr.  Lawrence 
came  to  England  in  1224,  then  all  that  is  told  of  him  must  have  taken 
place  within  the  brief  space  of  two  years.  Again,  Eccleston  concludes  the 
second  chapter  of  his  narrative  with  the  words :  "It  is  worthy  of  note 
that  in  the  second  year  of  the  administration  of  Fr.  Peter  (of  Tewkes- 
bury), the  fifth  minister  of  England,  namely  in  the  thirty-second  year  since 
the  arrival  of  the  brethren  in  England,  there  were  in  the  English  province 
1,242  friars  living  in  49  places."  Although  the  old  chroniclers  do  not  give 
the  years  of  Fr.  Peter's  administration.  Father  Cuthbert  {The  Friars  and 
how  they  came  to  England,  p.  141)  assumes  that  the  year  suggested  in 
Eccleston's  note  is  1251.  If  this  is  correct,  then  it  is  clear  that  the  first 
Franciscans  did  not  arrive  in  England  in  1224. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  5 

of  the  Benedictine  priory  of  the  Holy  Trinity.  The  monks 
had  probably  been  apprised  of  their  coming,  since  the  friars 
found  no  difficulty  in  identifying  themselves  and  receiving 
food  and  lodging. 

Leaving  his  brethren  at  the  priory,  Fr.  Agnellus  went 
to  the  king  and,  as  was  required  at  the  time,  presented  the 
credentials  drawn  up  and  signed  by  the  Pope.^  Plenry  III 
had  already  heard  of  St.  Francis  and  of  the  holy  life  he 
and  his  followers  were  leading.  Hence  he  received  the 
provincial  with  every  mark  of  esteem  and  readily  permitted 
the  friars  to  settle  in  Canterbury.  Thanking  the  Benedic- 
tines for  their  kindness,  the  Franciscans  took  up  their  tem- 
porary abode  in  the  Poor  Priests'  Hospice,  where  they 
remained  till  the  following  September. 

In  that  month,  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  Cardinal 
Stephen  Langton,  who  ever  after  proved  a  devoted  friend 
and  protector  of  the  friars,  raised  the  provincial  to  the 
dignity  of  the  priesthood  and  conferred  subdeaconship  on 
Fr.  Richard  of  Devonshire.  Soon  after  these  ordinations, 
Blessed  Agnellus  commissioned  Fr.  Richard  of  Ingworth  and 
Fr.  Richard  of  Devonshire  with  two  lay  brothers,  FF. 
Henry  and  Melioratus,  to  establish  houses  in  London  and 
Oxfo'rd,  while  he  with  the  four  remaining  friars  remained 
at  Canterbury,  in  order  to  begin  the  erection  of  the  first 
friary  on  English  soil.^  Alexander,  the  master  of  the  Poor 
Priests'  Hospice,  had  presented  them  with  a  plot  of  ground 
and  urged  the  citizens  to  contribute  toward  the  erection  of 

5.  The  credentials  which  St.  Francis  obtained  from  the  Pope  read  : 
"Honorius,  Bishop,  Servant  of  the  servants  of  God,  to  Archbishops,  Abbots, 
Deans,  Archdeacons,  and  other  prelates  of  church — Whereas  Our  beloved 
sons.  Brother  Francis  and  his  companions  of  the  life  and  institute  of  Friars 
Minor,  despising  the  vanities  of  the  world,  have  made  choice  of  a  way  of 
life  deservedly  approved  by  the  Roman  Church,  and  sowing  the  seeds  of 
the  word  of  God,  are  traveling  after  the  example  of  the  Apostles  through 
divers  nations  :  We  entreat  you  all,  and  exhort  you  in  the  Lord  and  com- 
mand you,  by  the  Apostolic  letters  addressed  to  you,  that,  whensoever 
members  of  said  institute  bearing  these  presents  shall  think  fit  to  come  to 
you,  you  receive  them  as  Catholics  and  true  believers  ;  and  that,  for  the 
honor  of  God  and  the  respect  you  owe  to  Us,  you  show  them  favor  and 
courtesy.  Given  at  Rome  on  the  third  day  of  the  ides  of  June,  in  the  third 
year  of  Our  Pontiflcate." — Annules  Minorum,  Vol.  I,  an.  1219,  num.  28. 

6.  Our  chief  sources  of  information  regarding  the  erection  of  the  first 
friaries  are  Eccleston  and  Parkinson. 


6  FRANCISCANS  AND 

a  house  for  them.  His  appeal  was  not  in  vain,  and  soon 
a  neat  little  friary  was  ready  to  receive  the  sons  of  St. 
Francis.  From  Antony  Wood,  the  Oxford  antiquary,  we 
learn  that  the  friars  held  this  place  in  the  name  of  the 
Canterbury  Corporation,  since  their  Rule  forbade  them  to 
possess  temporalities.  In  this  house,  which  was  later  dedi- 
cated to  St.  Francis,  the  friars  lived  for  almost  fifty  years, 
laboring  for  the  spiritual  welfare  of  their  generous  bene- 
factors and  educating  their  boys  in  the  adjoining  school. 
In  1270,  John  Diggs,  a  civil  official  of  Canterbury,  had  the 
friars  take  up  their  abode  on  Bennewith,  an  island  in  the 
double  channel  of  the  river  Stour.  It  was  this  friary  which 
late  in  the  fifteenth  century  was  given  to  the  reformed  mem- 
bers of  the  province,  and  which  they  inhabited  till  the  time 
of  its  suppression  under  Henry  VIII. 

When  Fr.  Richard  with  his  three  companions  arrived  in 
London,  the  people  vied  with  one  another  in  giving  them  a 
hearty  reception.  After  spending  a  fortnight  with  the 
Dominicans  at  Holborn,''  the  Franciscans  went  to  Cornhill, 
where  John  Travers,  Sheriff  of  London,  had  procured  and 
fitted  out  a  house  for  their  use.  So  greatly  were  the  citizens 
edified  at  the  charming  simplicity  and  self-denial  of  the 
friars,  that  they  soon  had  a  more  spacious  and  comfortable 
home  to  offer  them.  John  Irwin,  a  prosperous  merchant  of 
the  city  and  afterwards  a  lay  brother  of  the  Order,  pre- 
sented them  with  a  tract  of  land  in  the  Shambles  of  St. 
Nicholas,  a  place  where  the  poor  and  destitute  were  especial- 
ly numerous.  Here  in  the  space  of  five  years,  through  the 
charity  of  the  people  and  the  city  officials,  a  church  and 
a  friary  were  erected. 

Leaving  the  two  lay  brothers  in  London,  Fr.  Richard  of 
Ingworth  and  Fr.  Richard  of  Devonshire,  about  the  feast 
of  All  Saints  of  the  same  year,  1220,  set  out  for  Oxford, 
where,  at  the  time,  King  Henry  was  holding  court.  Being 
strangers  in  the  country,  they  lost  their  way.    Night  was 

7.  It  is  probable  that  the  Dominicans  had  come  to  England  in  1219. 
See  Parljinson,  p.  16. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  7 

coming  on,  and  they  knew  not  where  to  turn  for  lodging. 
Finally,  they  came  to  a  manor  house  that  belonged  to  the 
Benedictine  Abbe}'  of  Abbington.  They  knocked  at  the 
neighboring  priory,  and  the  porter,  though  astonished  at 
their  strange  dress  and  strange  story,  was  civil  enough  to 
admit  them.  But  the  prior,  from  a  rather  unworthy  motive, 
treated  the  poor  friars  harshly  and  turned  them  out  into 
the  night.  They  had  not  gone  far,  when  one  of  the  monks, 
taking  pity  on  them,  had  them  called  back,  set  refreshments 
before  them,  and  led  them  to  a  hayloft,  where  they  might 
rest  their  weary  bones.  That  night,  the  good  monk  had  a 
dreadful  dream.  He  saw  how  Christ  sitting  in  judgment 
commanded  the  inhospitable  prior  and  monks  of  Abbington 
to  be  strangled,  and  how  he  himself  found  rescue  in  the 
fond  embrace  of  St.  Francis.  On  awaking,  he  hastened  to 
the  prior  and  found  him  struggling  with  death.  Now  he 
related  his  dream  to  the  assembled  brethren.  All  were  filled 
with  fear,  especially  when  they  went  to  the  barn  and  found 
that  the  friars  had  gone.  Some  time  later,  both  the  prior 
and  the  abbot  of  Abbington  joined  the  ranks  of  St. 
Francis.^ 

After  spending  a  week  with  the  Dominicans  at  Oxford, 
they  answered  the  summons  of  Richard  Miller,  a  wealthy 
citizen,  who  offered  them  a  little  house  situated  near  the 
parish  church  of  St.  Ebbe.  Dviring  the  ensuing  Christmas 
season,  Blessed  Agnellus  visited  Oxford  and  appointed  Fr. 
"William  of  Esseby  guardian.  In  the  following  summer,  the 
friary  was  enlarged.  It  is  said  that  the  king  himself  broke 
ground  for  the  new  building,  and  that  men  of  high  stand- 
ing in  the  realm,  not  only  advanced  the  work  by  generous 
alms,  but  also  lent  manual  assistance,  carrying  stones  and 
mortar  to  the  masons.  The  king  also  ordered  that  the  friary- 
be  built  as  near  as  possible  to  the  royal  palace,  that  he 
might  the  more  easily  communicate  with  the  friars.  In  this 
convent,  which  grew  in  dimensions  as  years  went  on,  the 
sons  of  St.  Francis  dwelt  till  1539,  when  it  was  demolished 

8.  This  incident  is  related  by  Antony  Wood.     See  Parkinson,  p.  14. 


8  FRANCISCANS  AND 

by  order  of  Henry  VIII.  For  three  centuries,  the  clerics 
of  the  Order  were  sent  there  to  study  and  to  attend  the 
famous  university  of  Oxford,  so  that  we  may  justly  term 
this  friary  the  nursery  of  Franciscan  learning  and  the  most 
famous  convent  in  the  English  province. 

Thus,  before  the  end  of  the  year  1220,  the  Franciscans 
had  established  themselves  at  Canterbury,  London,  and  Ox- 
ford. Meanwhile,  as  is  very  probable,  other  friars,  hearing 
of  the  cordial  reception  accorded  Blessed  Agnellus  and  his 
companions,  took  heart  and  set  out  for  England.^  Among 
these  were  Fr.  Albert  of  Pisa,  brother  of  Blessed  Agnellus, 
Fr.  Henry  of  Pisa  and  FF.  Peter  and  Thomas,  both  of 
Spanish  birth.  With  their  arrival,  the  provincial  was  able 
to  found  new  houses.  Accordingly,  FF.  Richard  of  Ingworth 
and  Richard  of  Devonshire  went  to  Northampton  and  ob- 
tained lodging  in  a  hospital  in  the  parish  of  St.  Giles,  until 
a  friary  was  ready  to  receive  them.  The  first  guardian  of 
this  foundation  was  Fr.  Peter  the  Spaniard.  Not  long  after, 
the  Franciscans  settled  in  Cambridge.  For  a  time  they 
lived  in  an  old  synagogue  that  adjoined  the  city  prison. 
But  finding  the  noisy  surroundings  an  obstacle  to  the  proper 
discharge  of  their  religious  exercises,  they  purchased  with 
the  ten  marks  sent  them  by  the  king  a  plot  of  ground  near 
by,  on  which  the  people  erected  for  them  a  little  oratory 
' '  as  a  carpenter  may  build  in  a  day. ' '  Fr.  Thomas  of  Spain 
became  the  first  guardian  of  this  place. 

The  next  twenty-five  years  saw  Franciscan  friaries 
spring  up  in  all  parts  of  England.  From  Eccleston  we 
learn  that  in  the  second  year  of  the  provincialship  of  Fr. 
Peter  Tewkesbury,  probably  1251,  they  were  49  in  number. 
At  the  general  chapter,  in  1260,  the  English  Province  was 
registered  as  comprising  seven  custodies.^"  At  the  end  of 
the  next  century,  Fr.  Bartholomew  of  Pisa,  in  his  celebrated 

9.  Parkinson,  p.  11.  The  fact,  as  the  author  observes,  may  explain 
the  divergency  of  opinion  among  historians  regarding  the  date  when  the 
first  Franciscans  arrived  in  England. 

10.  Annales  Minorum,  Vol.  II,  an.  1260,  num.  14. 


THE  PKOTESTANT  REVOLUTION       9 

Liher  Conformitatum,^^  enumerated  these  same  seven  cus- 
todies, adding  the  names  of  the  friaries  which  at  the  time 
amounted  to  60.  The  names  of  the  custodies  with  their 
respective  friaries  are  as  follows : 

1.  London,  nine  friaries;  viz.,  London,  Canterbury,  Win- 

chelsea,    Southampton,    Ware,    Lewes,    Chichester, 
Salisbury,  Winchester; 

2.  York,  seven  friaries ;  viz.,  York,  Doncaster,  Lincoln,  Bos- 

ton, Beverley,  Scarborough,  Grimsby ; 

3.  Cambridge,  nine  friaries ;  viz.,  Cambridge,  Norwich,  Col- 

chester, Bury  St.  Edmunds,  Dunwich,  Walsingham, 
Yarmouth,  Ipswich,  Lynn; 

4.  Bristol,  nine  friaries;  viz.,  Bristol,  Gloucester,  Bridge- 

water,  Hereford,  Exeter,  Carmarthen,  Bodmin,  Dor- 
chester, Cardiff; 

5.  Oxford,  eight  friaries;  viz.,  Oxford,  Reading,  Bedford, 

Stamford,     Nottingham,     Northampton,     Leicester, 
Grantham ;, 

6.  Newcastle,  nine  friaries;  viz.,  Newcastle,  Dundee,  Dum- 

fries,   Haddington,    Carlisle,    Hartlepool,    Berwick, 
Roxburgh,  Richmond; 

7.  Worcester,    nine    friaries;    viz.,    Worcester,    Preston, 

Broughton,^^  Shrewsbury,  Coventry,  Chester,  Here- 
ford," Hamely,^*  Stafford. 

In  the  following  towns,  friaries  were  erected  probably 
in  the  course  of  the  fifteenth  century  ;^^  at  least  they  are 
not  on  the  lists  drawn  up  by  Bartholomew  of  Pisa  and  by 
Wadding : 

Anglesey     (Llanfaes     near      Aylesbury  in  Buckingham- 
Beaumaris)  in  Wales,  shire, 

11.  Analecta  Francisoan-a;  Vol.  IV,  pp.  545  seq.  In  his  An/nales 
Minorum  (Vol.  IV,  an.  1400,  num.  13),  Wadding  places  side  by  side  three 
lists  of  English  friaries  as  he  found  them  in  three  ancient  codices.  While 
the  three  codices  have  7  custodies,  but  two,  have  60  friaries,  the  third 
registering  only  58. 

12.  Here  Parkinson  places  Bridgenorth. 

13.  Parkinson  says  Litchfield. 

14.  Lancaster,  according  to  Parkinson. 

15.  See  Parkinson,  Part  II,  pp.  37  seq. 


10  FRANCISCANS  AND 

Brougham  in  Westmoreland,  Penrith  in  Cumberland, 

Greenwich  in  Kent,  Plymouth  in  Devonshire, 

Ludlow  in  Shropshire,  Pontefract  in  Yorkshire, 

Maidstone  in  Kent,  Stoke  in  Somersetshire, 

Newwark     in     Nottingham-  "Warrington  in  Lancashire, 

shire,  Becmachen   on   the   Isle   of 

Man.^« 

If  the  historian  of  to-day  finds  it  difficult  to  reconcile 
contradictory  statements  as  to  the  religious  houses  that 
constituted  the  English  Province,  he  will  try  in  vain  to 
determine  the  number  of  friars  that  belonged  to  the  prov- 
ince. Among  the  first  to  join  it  were,  according  to  Eccles- 
ton,  FF.  Solomon,  William  of  London,  Joyce  of  Cornhill, 
John,  and  Philip ;  then  certain  Masters  of  the  university  as 
Walter  de  Burgh,  Richard  the  Norman,  Vincent  of  Coven- 
try, Adam  de  Marisco;  and  finally  two  Benedictines  and 
four  knights.^^  How  rapidly  the  province  increased  in 
membership,  may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that  thirty-two 
years  after  the  arrival  of  the  first  Franciscans,  it  numbered 
1,242  friars.^^  To  some  extent,  the  number  of  friaries  exist- 
ing in  1260  permits  us  to  form  an  estimate  of  the  number 
of  religious  who  inhabited  them.  Professor  Little  reckons 
that  shortly  before  the  Black  Death,  the  English  Province 
numbered  some  2,000  friars.'^  But  their  ranks  were  greatly 
thinned,  when  the  dreadful  plague  visited  the  country.  This 
fact  is  confirmed  by  Gasquet,  when  he  writes,  "Of  the 
Franciscans  at  Winchester  and  Southampton,  only  three 
clerics  could  be  presented  for  ordination  in  1347  and  1348. 
And  before  the  death  of  the  Bishop  which  occurred  in  1359, 
only  two  more  were  presented. '  '^° 

It  was,  no  doubt,  this  marvelous  growth  of  the  province 
that  induced  Matthew  Paris,  who  died  in  1259,  to  write  re- 

16.  This  last  friary  is  mentioned  by  Thaddeus,  The  Franciscans  in 
England,  p.  16,  wlio  adds,  on  the  authority  of  Tanner  and  Dugdale,  that  it 
was  founded  in  1373. 

17.  Eccle.ston  in  Analecta  Franciscatva,  Vol.  I,  pp.  221  seq. 

18.  Ibidem. 

19.  Little,  Studies  in  English  Franciscan  History,  p.  71. 

20.  Gasquet,  Black  Death,  p.  132. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION      11 

garding  the  friars,  "All  England  was  soon  filled  and  re- 
plenished with  these  men,  and  not  only  the  larger  towns  and 
cities,  but  the  very  villages  and  hamlets  frequented  by 
them. "-^  Parkinson  says  that  "their  exemplary  lives  and 
disinterested  comportment  gained  so  upon  all  ranks  of  peo- 
ple, that  their  Order  increased  to  an  almost  incredible  num- 
ber of  friars,  and  their  convents  were  built  and  enlarged 
in  due  proportion.  "^^  The  same  historian  brings  the  names 
of  about  350  English  Franciscans  who,  during  the  three 
centuries  before  the  so-called  Reformation,  distinguished 
themselves  either  by  their  sanctity  or  by  their  activity  and 
influence  as  provincials,  preachers,  bishops,  legates,  or  as 
lecturers  and  doctors  at  Oxford,  Cambridge,  and  Paris. 
Casually,  he  mentions  groups  of  friars;  for  instance,  when 
he  says  under  the  year  1220  that  "many  Englishmen  peti- 
tioned to  be  admitted  into  the  Order,"  and  again,  on  the 
authority  of  Harpsfield,  remarks  that  "many  of  the  Bene- 
dictine monks,  of  the  Augustinan  friars,  nay  and  of  the 
very  Carthusians  petitioned  and  were  admitted  into  the 
Order  of  St.  Francis.  "^^  Finally,  it  is  worthy  of  special 
notice  that,  excepting  the  pioneers  of  the  province,  nothing 
at  all  is  recounted  regarding  the  laj^  brotliers  whose  secluded 
life  did  not  bring  them  before  the  public  and  into  the  an- 
nals of  the  province.  From  all  this  it  may  justly  be  in- 
ferred that  the  English  Franciscans  were  verj^  numerous, 
and  that  Brewer  has  reason  to  call  the  expansion  of  the 
province  "an  instance  of  religious  organization  and  propa- 
gandism  unexampled  in  the  annals  of  the  world.  "^* 

The  early  Franciscans  in  England  were  men  of  sterling 
piety  and  of  untiring  zeal  for  the  spiritual  and  temporal 
welfare  of  the  people.  Complete  detachment  from  earthly 
comforts  combined  with  a  cheerful  and  winning  disposition 
won  for  them  the  esteem  and  confidence  of  all  classes.  In 
selecting  their  field  of  labor,  the  friars  made  no  distinction 

21.  See  Parkinson,  p.  30. 

22.  Ibidem,  p.  17. 

23.  Ibidem,  p.  18. 

24.  Monumenta  Franoiscana,  Vol.  I,  Preface,  p.  XLI. 


12  FRANCISCANS  AND 

between  rich  and  poor,  high  and  low,  so  that  serf  and  out- 
cast vied  with  king  and  noble  in  welcoming  them  in  their 
midst  and  in  providing  them  with  the  necessaries  of  life. 
At  the  ordination  of  Fr.  Solomon,  as  Eccleston  relates,  the 
archdeacon  called  upon  him  with  the  words,  "Brother 
Solomon,  of  the  Order  of  the  Apostles,  may  step  forth," 
thereby  unwittingly  forecasting  the  future  activity  of  the 
province.^^  For,  as  history  shows,  in  their  private  life  and 
in  their  exterior  labors,  the  sons  of  St.  Francis  in  England 
were  true  apostles  sent  to  instruct  and  confirm  the  people 
in  their  faith  and  to  imbue  them  with  the  true  spirit  of 
Christ.  By  word  and  example  they  showed  the  masses  how 
to  love  God  and  their  immortal  soul  above  all  things,  how 
to  submit  to  lawful  authority  in  Church  and  State,  how  to 
foster  love  and  harmony  among  themselves,  how  to  forgive 
injuries,  how  to  sympathize  with  sufferers,  in  a  word,  how 
to  realize  in  their  daily  transactions  those  ideals  of  Christian 
perfection  that  have  the  promise  of  eternal  life. 

From  the  scanty  records  that  escaped  the  vandalism  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  it  is  clear  that  the  English  Francis- 
cans were  ardent  adherents  of  Lady  Poverty.  Penniless 
they  came  to  England  and  penniless  they  lived  and  labored 
there.  Their  first  friaries,  erected  almost  without  exception 
in  the  poorest  and  meanest  quarters  of  the  cities,  were  little 
better  than  hovels.  ' '  In  all  instances, ' '  Brewer  maintains, 
"the  poverty  of  their  buildings  corresponded  with  those  of 
the  surrounding  district :  their  living  and  lodging  no  better 
than  the  poorest  among  whom  they  settle. '  '-^  But  even  these 
humble  dwellings  the  friars  refused  to  possess  as  their  own, 
declaring  that  they  held  them  in  the  name  of  corporations. 
Likewise,  in  the  beginning  at  least,  they  fairly  rejected  all 
lands  and  revenues,  and  depended  for  their  subsistence  on 
the  liberality  of  the  people  whom  they  served.  If  it  is  cer- 
tain that  in  after  years  wealthy  benefactors  bequeathed 
landed  property  and  annual  incomes  to  them,  it  is  equally 

25.  Eccleston  in  Analecta  Franciscana,  Vol.  I.  p.  222. 

26.  Monumenta  Franciscana,  Vol.  I,  Preface,  p.  XIX. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION      13 

certain  that  these  were  not  welcomed,  must  less  sought  for, 
by  the  friars  and  were  received  by  them  only  as  alms  to 
which  they  should  have  no  legal  claim. 

Many  interesting  and  edifying  anecdotes  are  related, 
showing  how  the  friars  loved  and  practiced  the  vow  of 
poverty.  In  London,  for  instance,  the  partitions  of  their 
original  friary  were  filled  out  with  dried  grass.  Before 
settling  in  Oxford,  Blessed  Agnellus  gave  orders  that  the 
walls  of  the  infirmary  were  not  to  exceed  a  man's  height; 
neither  did  this  friary  have  a  guest  room  until  the  time  of 
Fr.  Albert  of  Pisa,  who  was  provincial  in  1223.  At  Shrews- 
bury, Fr.  William  Nottingham,  the  fourth  provincial,  com- 
manded that  the  stone  walls  in  the  dormitory  be  removed 
and  mud  walls  put  in  their  stead.  The  friars  at  Cambridge 
did  not  even  have  mantles  to  shield  themselves  against  the 
cold.  At  another  place,  Fr.  Solomon  was,  on  one  occasion, 
"so  starved  with  cold  that  he  believed  himself  nigh  unto 
death ;  and  the  brethren  having  not  wherewith  to  warm  him, 
holy  charity  suggested  to  them  a  remedy ;  for  all  the  brethren 
gathered  together  and  huddled  about  him. ' '" 

This  extreme  poverty  and  lack  of  every  comfort  did  not 
make  the  friars  sullen  and  inaccessible.  On  the  contrary, 
as  they  were  poor  and  unassuming  in  their  habits,  so  they 
were  jovial  and  winning  in  their  dealings  with  others. 
Their  very  poverty  often  proved  a  source  of  merriment  and 
geniality.  Thus  Ecclestou  tells  us  how  one  evening,  as  was 
customary  on  days  of  fast,  the  brethren  were  gathered 
around  the  kitchen  fire  to  drink  of  the  beverage  which,  most 
probably,  had  been  sent  them  by  some  benefactor.  But  the 
amount  was  not  sufficient  for  all,  so  that  "he  esteemed  him- 
self fortunate  who  could  in  a  friendly  way  seize  the  cup  from 
another."  At  another  time  it  happened  that  two  brethren 
came  to  one  of  the  friaries  on  a  visit.  Having  no  refresh- 
ments to  place  before  them,  the  guardian  procured  a  measure 
of  ale  on  credit.  Now,  when  the  jug  was  passed  around,  the 
members  of  the  community  indeed  put  it  to  their  lips,  so  as 

27.  Eccleston  in  Analecta  Fmnciscana,  Vol.  I,  passim. 


14  FRANCISCANS  AND 

not  to  embarrass  their  guests ;  but  they  did  not  drink  of  its 
contents,  because  they  feared  there  was  not  enough  for  all. 
At  Oxford,  the  young  friars  had  to  be  severely  reprimanded 
for  laughing  out  of  season.-^  And  Fr.  Peter  of  Tewkesbury 
once  told  a  Friar  Preacher  that  he  thought  bodily  health 
depended  on  three  things ;  viz.,  food,  sleep,  and  fun.^^ 

A  remarkable  feature  of  the  development  of  the  province 
is  the  fact  that  so  many  persons  of  exalted  station  in  the 
English  realm  were  instrumental  in  erecting  the  friaries.^*' 
Heniy  III  proved  a  constant  friend  and  benefactor  of  the 
-Franciscans;  and  it  was  in  great  part  owing  to  his  long 
reign  that  they  gained  so  firm  a  footing  and  made  such  rapid 
progress  on  English  soil.  At  least  six  of  the  first  friaries 
were  founded  either  entirely  or  partly  by  him.  In  this  work 
he  was  seconded  especially  by  Cardinal  Stephen  Langton, 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  by  Dr.  Heniy  Langton,  the 
Cardinal's  brother.  The  chief  founder  of  the  house  at 
Worcester  was  the  Earl  of  Warwick ;  while  the  one  at  Pres- 
ton owed  its  founding  to  Edward  of  Lancaster,  the  brother 
of  Henry  III.  The  Bishop  of  Litchfield  invited  the  friars 
to  his  episcopal  city  and  had  a  house  built  for  them.  Simi- 
larly, at  Salisbury,  it  was  the  bishop  who  erected  the  Fran- 
ciscan friary  on  the  site  presented  for  that  purpose  by  the 
king.  About  1233,  the  Countess  of  Leicester  set  up  a  con- 
vent for  them  at  Ware.  Edward  I,  in  the  third  year  of  his 
reign,  built  a  spacious  friary  at  Cambridge,  and,  in  1288, 
another  at  Libourne  in  Aquitaine,  France.  Here  we  may 
also  mention  that  during  the  Hundred  Years  War  between 
England  and  France,  the  English  Franciscans  had  several 
houses  both  in  France  and  in  Scotland.  The  one  at  Bor- 
deaux, for  instance,  was  built  by  Edward  III.  Queen  Mar- 
garet, consort  of  Edward  I,  caused  the  old  church  in  London, 
which  had  been  erected  about  a  century  before  by  the  lord 
mayor,  to  be  torn  down  and  replaced  by  a  new  one,  she  her- 

28.  Ibidem,  passim. 

29.  Cuthbert,  The  Friars  and  how  they  came  to  England,  p.  236,  from 
a  marginal  note  in  the  Cottonian  MMS.  edition  of  Eccleston. 

30.  The  following  facts  are  taken  principally  from  Parkinson. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION      15 

self  contributing  2,000  marks.  At  York  and  Lincoln,  Henry 
Lacy,  Earl  of  Lincoln,  together  with  his  chaplain  was  their 
principal  benefactor,  while  at  Scarborough  and  Colchester  it 
was  again  the  king,  Edward  II,  who  gave  freely  toward  their 
support.  His  son,  Edward  III,  founded  or  endowed  the 
four  houses  at  Walsingham,  Berwick,  Greenwich  and  Maid- 
stone. About  the  same  time,  through  the  munificence  of 
Edward,  the  Black  Prince,  a  friary  was  founded  at  Coventry. 
We  have  already  mentioned  that  the  Franciscans  had 
scarcely  settled  in  England  when  men  from  every  station  in 
life  asked  to  be  admitted  into  their  ranks.  It  is  surprising, 
indeed,  how  many  in  the  course  of  time  exchanged  their 
wealth  and  worldly  distinction  for  the  poor  and  lowly  living 
of  the  friar.^^  Before  their  entrance  into  the  Order,  Fr. 
William  had  been  in  the  service  of  the  Lord  Justiciary  of 
England;  Fr.  Zannestre,  a  distinguished  knight;  Fr.  Mat- 
thew Gayton,  a  wealthy  and  influential  esquire.  With  Fr. 
Vincent  of  Coventry  came  his  brother  Henry  and  later 
William  of  York,  both  eminent  doctors  of  the  university. 
In  1230,  Robert  of  Hendred,  abbot  of  the  Benedictine  mon- 
astery at  Abbington,  gave  up  his  costly  raiment  for  the  hum- 
ble garb  of  St.  Francis.  His  example  attracted  John  of 
Reading,  abbot  of  the  celebrated  monastery  of  Canons 
Regular  at  Osney,  near  Oxford.  In  1239,  Ralph  of  Maid- 
stone followed  in  the  footsteps  of  these  two  prelates  and, 
after  resigning  his  episcopal  see  of  Hereford,  joined  the 
Order  and  led  a  retired  life  in  the  friary  at  Gloucester. 
Many  doctors  and  professors  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  took 
the  habit  during  the  first  half  of  the  fourteenth  century. 
Among  them  Parkinson  mentions  John  Winchelsey,  Regi- 
nald Lambourne,  John  Lisle,  John  Waler,  Oliver  Stanwey. 
In  1325,  Lord  Robert  Fitzwater  entered  the  Order ;  in  1343, 
Lord  Baron  Lisle ;  and  in  1347,  Sir  Robert  Nigram,  a  famous 
knight.  Finally,  in  1386,  William  Scharshille,  and  in  1426, 
a  certain  Clopton,  who  had  both  held  the  office  of  Lord  Chief 
Justice  of  England,  renounced  the  honor  and  preferments 

31.  What  follows  is  likewise  based  chiefly  on  Parkinson. 


16  FRANCISCANS  AND 

of  the  world  and  became  followers  of  the  Poor  Man  of  Assisi. 
The  activity  and  influence  of  the  English  Franciscans 
during  the  pre-Reformation  period  fills  one  of  the  brightest 
pages  of  the  history  of  the  Order.  About  the  year  1228, 
Robert  Grosseteste,  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  wrote  to  Pope 
Gregory  IX : 

Your  Holiness  may  be  sure  that  inestimable  blessings  are 
reaching  our  people  through  the  said  (Franciscan)  friars.  For 
they  illuminate  our  whole  land  with  the  bright  light  of  their  preach- 
ing and  teaching.  Their  saintly  manner  of  living  strongly  incites 
to  contempt  of  the  world  and  voluntary  poverty,  to  preserving 
humility  even  amid  dignity  and  power,  to  maintaining  complete 
submission  toward  prelates  and  toward  the  Head  of  the  Church,  to 
patience  amid  tribulation,  to  self-denial  amid  riches,  and,  in  a 
word,  to  the  exercises  of  every  virtue.  Oh,  if  your  Holiness  could 
see  with  what  devotion  and  humility  the  people  run  to  hear  from 
them  the  word  of  life,  to  confess  their  sins,  to  be  instructed  in  the 
rules  of  living,  and  how  the  clergy  and  the  regulars  have  improved 
by  imitating  them,  you  would  indeed  say  that  the  light  has  risen 
unto  them  that  sit  in  the  region  of  the  shadow  of  death!  The 
zeal  of  your  Holiness  will  therefore  provide  that,  so  great  a  light 
having  been  extinguished  or  darkened,  which  the  true  light  may 
avert,  the  ancient  darkness  of  error  and  sin,  already  greatly  dis- 
pelled by  the  rays  of  their  light,  may  not  overshadow  and  envelope 
the  land  which  before  others  is  especially  dear  to  you.^ 

History  tells  us  how  during  the  succeeding  centuries  the 
friars  merited  this  enviable  eulogy. 

When  the  Franciscans  began  to  live  and  labor  in  Eng- 
land, serious  and  critical  problems  confronted  the  State  as 
well  as  the  Church.  The  crusades  had  introduced  new  ideas 
on  society  and  politics,  which  gradually  undermined  the 
feudal  system  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Especially  among  the 
country  folk,  till  then  happy  and  prosperous  under  the  be- 
nign influence  of  the  monastic  institutions,  a  spirit  of  inde- 
pendence and  discontent  was  plainly  visible.  In  the  towns 
whither  they  fled,  their  spiritual  needs  could  not  be  suffi- 
ciently provided  for  by  the  limited  number  of  secular 
clergy,  while  their  own  inexperience  in  matters  commercial 

32.  Pelder,  Studien  im  Franziskanerorden,  p.  271. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  17 

and  industrial  soon  put  them  at  the  mercy  of  the  wealthy 
and  selfish  merchant  class.  Add  to  this  the  constant  clashes 
between  popular  rights  and  royal  pretensions,  and  it  is  easy 
to  understand  how  in  the  towns  the  lower  classes  soon  fell  a 
prey  to  poverty,  ignorance,  and  vice,  and  even  began  to  drift 
away  from  the  Church. 

Here  then  the  sons  of  St.  Francis  found  an  extensive  field 
for  action.  From  their  humble  friaries,  erected  in  the 
poorest  and  meanest  districts  of  the  populous  towns,  they 
went  forth  like  angels  of  peace  to  proclaim  their  message  of 
love  and  penance  to  all,  and  thus  in  time  bridged  over  the 
gulf  that  lay  between  the  upper  and  the  lower  classes.  We 
are  told  that,  on  Sundays  and  holydays,  they  would  assist 
the  neighboring  parish  priests  in  administering  the  sacra- 
ments, preaching  the  word  of  God,  and  catechizing  the  chil- 
dren. At  other  times,  they  would  preach  on  the  open 
street,  where  crowds  eagerly  drank  in  their  words  of  in- 
struction and  consolation.  The  outcasts  of  society,  who  in 
the  suburbs  were  leading  a  life  of  spiritual  desolation  and 
bodily  squalor,  seem  to  have  had  a  special  claim  on  their 
loving  solicitude.  By  word  and  example  they  showed  the 
neglected  poor  how  to  serve  God  even  in  poverty  and  dis- 
tress, taught  the  wealthy  the  proper  use  of  temporal  goods, 
and  exhorted  all  to  live  in  peace  and  harmony  and  in  loyal 
submission  to  rightful  authority.  "The  effect  of  such  men 
upon  the  neglected  masses  of  the  population  may  easily  be 
imagined.  .  .  .  Lessons  of  patience  and  endurance  fell 
with  greater  persuasion  and  tenderness  from  lips  of  men 
who  were  living  and  voluntary  examples  of  what  they 
taught.  "^^  If  in  later  years,  especially  at  the  outbreak  of 
the  Protestant  Revolution  the  English  nation  at  large  was 
devoted  to  the  Holy  See,  it  must  be  ascribed  in  great  part 
to  the  sons  of  St.  Francis,  who  were  ever  the  fearless  preach- 
ers and  defenders  of  papal  supremacy. 

As  a  means  of  popular  instruction  and  edification,  the 
mystery  and  miracle  plays  were  earnestly  fostered  by  the 

33.  Monumenta  FranciscanOj  Vol.  I,  Preface,  p.  XXVIII. 


18  FRANCISCANS  AND 

friars.  "In  organizing  and  acting  miracle  plays,"  Hew- 
lett writes,  "the  Franciscan  friars  took  a  decided  lead,  and 
so  far  was  it  reckoned  in  late  times  one  of  the  recognized 
callings  of  the  Order  that  the  corporation  registers  of  York 
tell  us  that  in  1426  William  Melton,  of  the  Order  of  Friars 
Minor,  'Professor  of  Holy  Pageantry  and  a  most  famous 
preacher  of  the  Word  of  God, '  made  an-angements  respect- 
ing the  Corpus  Christi  play  in  that  city,  evidently  as  man- 
ager of  the  performance. '  '^*  The  celebrated  Coventry  cycle 
of  forty-eight  plays  is  entirely  their  work.  On  appointed 
days,  large  crowds  would  gather  at  Coventry  and  in  the 
neighboring  towns  to  witness  these  representations  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testament.  "These  pageants,"  Dugdale  in- 
forms us,  "were  sacred  representations  wherein  were  ex- 
hibited the  histories  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  the 
persons  therein  mentioned  being  brought  upon  the  stage, 
and  whom  the  poet,  according  to  his  fancy,  introduced  talk- 
ing to  one  another  in  old  English  metre,  composed  by  the 
Friars  Minor,  and  acted  by  their  direction. '  '^^ 

Although  information  is  very  meager  regarding  their 
activity  during  the  Black  Death,  which  devastated  Europe 
in  the  first  half  of  the  fourteenth  century,  we  may  form  an 
estimate,  if  we  call  to  mind  that  their  friaries  stood  in  the 
neglected  and  unhealthy  districts  where  the  plague  natural- 
ly raged  most  fiercely.  What  Howlett  asserts  regarding  the 
Franciscan  Order  in  general  is  also  true  of  its  members  in 
England.  "It  is  not  disputed,"  he  writes,  "that  in  the 
awful  visitations  of  the  Black  Death  in  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, the  Franciscan  Friars  in  different  parts  of  Europe 
perished  literally  by  the  thousands  through  their  devoted  at- 
tentions to  the  sick  and  dying. '  '^^  That  many  of  the  Eng- 
lish Province  fell  victims  to  their  charitable  ministrations 
may  be  also  gathered  from  the  fact  that,  as  we  have  stated 
above,  so  few  clerics  could  be  presented  for  ordinations  in 
the  years  immediately  following  the  dreadful  visitation. 

34.  Ibidem,  Vol.  II,  Preface,  p.  XXVIII. 

35.  See  Franciscan  Annals  (Pantasaph,  England),  Vol.  XL,  p.  168. 

36.  Monumenta  Franciscana,  Vol.  II,  Preface,  p.  XXXIV. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  19 

In  their  zeal  for  the  welfare  of  the  people,  the  friars 
knew  no  distinction  of  creed  or  nationality.  A  striking  in- 
stance of  this  we  find  toward  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury. Growing  complaints  against  the  Jews,  made  especially 
by  the  merchant  class,  caused  Edward  I  to  take  severe 
measures  against  them.  When  the  persecution  was  at  its 
height  and  a  general  massacre  had  been  decreed,  the  Fran- 
ciscans intervened  and,  by  promising  to  work  for  the  con- 
version of  the  Jews,  succeeded  in  obtaining  from  the  king 
a  revocation  of  the  decree.  "For,"  as  Parkinson  explains, 
"the  Franciscans  had  generally  showed  themselves  so  free 
from  all  mercenary  regards,  that  they  seemed  to  have  no 
other  interest  in  this  world,  besides  working  out  their  own 
salvation  and  laboring  to  contribute  to  that  of  their  neigh- 
bor." In  later  years,  Fr.  Nicholas  de  Lyra,  himself  of 
Jewish  extraction,  worked  zealously  for  the  conversion  of 
Jews  in  England.  By  his  writings  and  sermons,  it  is  said, 
he  brought  six  thousand  of  his  people  to  the  fold  of  Christ." 

This  heroic  and  disinterested  zeal  for  the  social  uplifting 
of  the  lower  and  middle  classes  could  not  escape  the  notice 
of  the  wealthy  and  powerful.  The  activity  of  the  English 
friars  in  State  and  Church  affairs  is  perhaps  unexampled 
in  the  history  of  the  Order.  Hardly  were  they  settled  in 
Canterbury,  when  Henry  III  appointed  Bl.  Agnellus  of 
Pisa  to  his  Privy  Council.  In  1232,  when  Richard,  the  Earl 
Marshal,  was  heading  a  rebellion  of  the  barons  against  the 
king,  this  friar  as  the  king's  plenipotentiary  treated  with 
the  powerful  Earl  and  persuaded  him  to  accept  the  king's 
proposals  of  peace  and  to  put  an  end  to  the  bloody  strife.^^ 
Fr.  Adam  de  Marisco  was  on  intimate  terms  with  Simon  of 
Montfort  and  with  Robert  Grosseteste,  Bishop  of  Lincoln. 
His  letters  show  what  an  influence  he  had  on  the  efforts  of 
these  two  men  for  the  ecclesiastical  and  political  welfare  of 
the  country .2^    It  is  not  improbable  that  in  Franciscan  cir- 

37.  Parkinson,  pp.  99,  161.  38.  Ibidem,  pp.  9,  34. 

39.  Brewer  published  these  letters  in  Monumenia  Franciftcana  as  he 
found  them  in  the  Cottonian  MMS.  They  are  of  historical  interest  and 
Importance,  since  they  throw  abundant  light  on  the  activity  and  influence 
of  the  early  English  Franciscans. 


20  FRANCISCANS  AND 

cles  those  principles  of  civil  liberty  first  were  clearly  formu- 
lated which  had  already  been  laid  down  in  the  celebrated 
Magna  Charta,  and  which  in  time  led  to  the  constitutional 
monarchy  of  England.*"  The  letters  show  also  how  their 
author  encouraged  and  counseled  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln  in 
reforming  the  clergy  of  his  large  diocese.  In  1241,  after  a 
meeting  of  the  English  bishops  at  Oxford,  Franciscan  and 
Dominican  friars  were  sent  to  France,  in  order  to  rouse  the 
people  against  Emperor  Frederic  II,  and  to  remonstrate 
with  him  for  illtreating  the  Pope.*^  "Many  other  Fran- 
ciscans," says  Parkinson,  "were  employed  in  the  several 
expeditions  of  the  English  to  the  holy  wars ;  they  being  es- 
teemed the  most  proper  persons  for  that  work,  both  because 
they  were  famous  preachers  and  inured  to  mortifications 
and  hardships,  and  likewise  disengaged  from  any  interest  of 
this  world."*-  Thus,  for  instance,  Prince  Edward,  son  of 
Henry  III,  selected  Fr.  Robert  -Turneham  to  accompany 
him  on  a  crusade  against  the  Turks  and  to  serve  as  chaplain 
of  the  army  he  had  fitted  out  for  the  expedition.*^ 

About  the  year  1286,  Edward  I  appointed  Fr.  John  of 
Stamford,  who  had  been  chosen  for  the  archbishopric  of 
Dublin,  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  and  later  he  sent  him 
as  ambassador  to  the  imperial  court.  This  same  king  placed 
such  confidence  in  the  loyalty  and  discretion  of  Fr.  William 
of  Gaynesborough,  that  in  1295  he  sent  him  together  with 
Fr.  Hugh  of  Manchester  to  the  King  of  France,  in  order  to 
settle  some  disagreement  concerning  English  territory  in 
Aquitaine.  Later,  Fr.  William,  who  had  meanwhile  become 
Bishop  of  Worcester,  was  again  employed  by  Edward  in 
negotiating  the  marriage  between  the  Black  Prince,  the  heir 
of  the  English  throne,  and  Isabel,  the  daughter  of  Philip 
the  Fair  of  France.**  Repeatedly,  in  the  course  of  Parkin- 
son's narrative,  we  find  the  names  of  Franciscans  whom  the 
kings  of  England  selected  as  their  confessors  and  advisers. 

40.  Holzapfel,  Geschichte  des  Franziskanerordens,  p.  234. 

41.  Gasquet,  Henry  III  and  the  Church,  p.  200. 

42.  Parkinson,  p.  98. 

43.  Ibidem,  p.  87.  44.  Ibidem,  pp.  98,  125. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  21 

After  the  civil  war,  in  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, a  great  disaster  befell  the  friars.  We  mention  this 
incident  only  to  show  how  little  they  cared  for  royal  favors 
when  truth  and  justice  came  in  question.  "When  it  was 
rumored  that  Richard  II,  who  had  been  dethroned  and  mur- 
dered, was  still  among  the  living  and  ready  to  reclaim  his 
throne,  the  friars  credited  the  report  and  openly  espoused 
his  cause.  This  so  exasperated  the  usurper  Henry  IV  of 
Lancaster,  that  he  had  several  of  their  number  cast  into 
prison.  When  Fr.  Richard,  guardian  of  Leicester,  was 
asked  by  an  official  what  he  would  do  if  the  dead  king  were 
really  alive,  he  answered  that  he  would  fight  for  him  till 
death.  This  bold  reply  cost  him  his  life.  Subsequently, 
eleven  more  friars  were  imprisoned  and  executed  for  the 
same  reason.  After  matters  had  cleared  up,  however,  and 
Henry  IV  realized  that  the  Franciscans  had  acted  in  good 
faith  and  from  the  start  had  been  willing  to  acknowledge 
him  their  king  provided  Richard  were  dead,  he  reinstated 
them  in  their  former  favor  and  gave  orders  that  they  should 
be  no  longer  molested  for  the  stand  they  had  taken,*^ 

In  1235,  and  again  in  1240,  the  provincial  of  the  English 
Franciscans  received  a  letter  from  the  Pope  urging  the 
friars  to  use  their  influence  in  behalf  of  the  crusades ;  and 
in  1254,  Pope  Innocent  IV  appointed  two  of  their  number 
to  collect  subsidies  for  the  Holy  Land.*^  In  fact,  the  Popes 
not  less  than  the  kings  repeatedly  employed  them  in  this 
noble  cause.  Again,  how  high  they  stood  in  the  estimation 
of  Church  and  of  State  dignitaries,  we  see  from  the  fact 
that  so  large  a  number  were  vested  with  episcopal  dignities 
in  England,  Ireland,  Scotland,  Wales,  and  Italy.  Parkin- 
son brings  the  names  of  at  least  thirty-five  friars  who  be- 
came bishops.  Of  these,  the  most  distinguished  for  sanctity, 
learning,  and  influence  was  Fr.  John  Peckham,  whom  Pope 
Nicholas  III  appointed  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  Pri- 
mate of  England.    In  1246,  Fr.  John  Anglicus  became  papal 

45.  Ibidem,  p.  185. 

46.  Annales  Minonnn,  Vol.  I,  an.  1235,  num.  27  ;  an.  1240,  num.  20  ; 
Vol.  II,  an.  1254,  num.  42. 


22  FRANCISCANS  AND 

legate  in  England  with  full  powers  over  all  prelates  of  the 
realm.  A  few  years  later,  this  same  office  was  held  by  Fr. 
John  of  Kent  and  by  Fr.  Adam  de  Marisco.  In  IMl,  the 
Holy  See  granted  Henry  VI  permission  to  have  Francis- 
cans reside  constantly  at  court  and  to  send  them  to  foreign 
rulers  on  important  State  affairs.  During  the  Exile  of  the 
Papacy,  Fr.  Thomas  Travesham  and  Fr.  Walter  Cotton, 
two  men  of  exceptional  learning,  were  summoned  to  Avignon 
by  Benedict  XII  and  appointed  papal  plenipotentiaries.*^ 

In  their  loyalty  to  the  Church  and  their  zeal  for  the 
propagation  and  preservation  of  the  faith  in  England,  the 
Franciscans  did  not  entirely  forget  the  foreign  missions. 
As  earl}^  as  1238,  Fr.  Adam  of  Exeter  was  sent  by  Pope 
Gregory  IX  to  preach  the  gospel  among  the  Saracens ;  but 
he  died  before  reaching  his  destination.  In  1337,  a  certain 
Fr.  "William,  likewise  of  the  English  Province,  suffered  cruel 
martyrdom  for  the  faith  at  the  hands  of  the  Saracens,  at 
Salmastre  in  Persia.  Finally,  in  1392,  Fr.  Roger  of  Eng- 
land, engaged  on  the  missions  among  the  Tatars  in  Asia, 
was  sent  by  the  Vicar  Apostolic  to  the  Pope  to  solicit  more 
missionaries.*® 

"When  John  Wyclif  was  perverting  England  by  his  heret- 
ical teaching,  the  Franciscans  of  Oxford  were  among  the 
first  to  oppose  him.  Learned  theologians  assembled  at  Ox- 
ford in  1381,  and  Fr.  John  Tyssington,  a  leading  doctor  of 
the  university,  was  foremost  in  condemning  Wyclif's  doc- 
trine regarding  the  Blessed  Eucharist.  The  following  year, 
on  May  18,  an  ecclesiastical  court  was  held  at  Blackfriars  in 
London.  Here  again  five  Franciscan  doctors  of  Oxford  and 
Cambridge  were  among  the  signers  of  the  twenty-four  con- 
clusions against  the  heretic.  After  the  death  of  "Wyclif, 
Thomas  Arundel,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  held  a  con- 
vocation at  St.  Paul's  in  London,  and  publicly  condemned 
the  eighteen  heretical  propositions  which  Fr.  William  Wood- 
ford  had    drawn   up    from   Wyclif's    famous    Trialogue. 

47.  Parkinson,  pp.  67,  72,  199,  154,  155. 

48.  Ibidem,  pp.  41,  154,  180. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION      23 

Equally  zealous  in  this  affair  was  Fr.  Thomas  Wolward. 
Finally,  when  a  second  synod  was  held  at  St.  Paul's,  in 
1408,  to  check  the  spread  of  the  heresy,  Fr.  William  Butler 
was  chosen  to  preach  before  the  distinguished  assembly.*^ 

Volumes  could  be  written  on  what  the  English  Fran- 
ciscans achieved  in  the  field  of  letters.  We  must  confine 
ourselves  to  a  few  facts  and  names.  "The  English  nation 
has  given  to  the  Franciscan  Order  a  greater  number  of 
eminently  learned  men  than  all  the  other  nations  taken 
together.  Yes,  if  we  consider  only  the  leaders  of  the 
Minorite  schools,  they  all  with  the  exception  of  St.  Bona- 
venture  belong  to  England. '  '^°  Beginning  with  Oxford,  al- 
most all  the  friaries  erected  before  1254  had  their  school. 
In  that  year,  the  province  numbered  33  or  34  lecturers,  a 
fact  which,  as  Felder  points  out,  seems  to  imply  that  most 
of  the  friaries  at  the  time  were  in  need  of  them.  Wood's 
incomplete  catalog  registers  67  Franciscans  who  had  been 
public  professors  at  Oxford  before  1350;  and  according  to 
another  catalog,  72  had  been  similarly  engaged  at  Cambridge 
before  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century.^^  All  these  were 
doctors  of  divinity,  while  many  of  them  exerted  immense 
influence  as  regents  and  chancellors  of  the  two  universities. 
Again,  English  Franciscans  were  summoned  to  teach  at 
foreign  seats  of  learning.  "Lyons,  Paris  and  Cologne," 
writes  Brewer,  "were  indebted  for  their  first  professors  to 
the  English  Franciscans  at  Oxford.  Repeated  applications 
were  made  from  Ireland,  Denmark,  France,  and  Germany 
for  English  friars.  "^^ 

Under  their  influence,  theology  and  philosophy  as  well 
as  the  liberal  arts  were,  not  only  greatly  promoted,  but  also 
turned  to  practical  account.  Parkinson  remarks  that  many 
English  friars  wrote  commentaries  on  Sacred  Scripture. 
And  Brewer  finds  it  remarkable  "that  the  friars,  the  most 
ardent  upholders  of  scholastic  theology,  are  precisely  the 

49.  Ibidem,  pp.  178,  181,  182,  183,  191. 

50.  Felder,  p.  316. 

51.  Parkinson,  pp.  28,  62. 

52.  Monumetita  Franciscana,  Vol.  I,  Preface,  p.  LXXXI. 


24  FRANCISCANS  AND 

men  who  constitute  the  most  popular  preachers  of  the  age. ' ' 
The  friars  were  the  first  to  treat  medicine  and  physics 
empirically;  they  gave  a  new  impulse  to  higher  mathe- 
matics; while  by  their  zeal  for  the  classics,  they  paved  the 
way  for  the  Christian  Humanism  of  the  subsequent  Renais- 
sance period.^^  English  friars  were  also  instrumental  in 
founding  Baliol  College  at  Oxford,  Pembroke  College  at 
Cambridge,  and  a  lecture  hall  at  Paris.  It  was  probably 
through  their  efforts  that  the  art  of  printing  was  introduced 
at  Oxford  as  early  as  1463,  and  that,  in  1474,  the  works  of 
Duns  Scotus  were  printed  and  published  for  the  first  time 
in  England.^*  "In  the  thirteenth  century,"  says  Digby, 
"the  Dominicans  and  Franciscans  surpassed  all  their  prede- 
cessors in  zeal  for  writing  and  collecting  books."  At  an 
early  date,  the  Franciscans  had  two  libraries  at  Oxford,  one 
for  the  brethren  and  another  for  the  secular  professors  and 
students  of  the  university.  Many  of  the  volumes  had  been 
bequeathed  to  them  by  Bishop  Grosseteste,  while  the  large 
number  of  Greek  and  Hebrew  works  had  been  purchased 
from  the  exiled  Jews.^^ 

Among  the  English  Franciscans  who  were  esteemed  as 
profound  and  influential  scholars,  Ven.  John  Duns  Scotus 
and  Fr.  Roger  Bacon  undoubtedly  hold  the  place  of  honor. 
The  former,  known  as  the  Subtle  Doctor,  is  the  founder  of 
the  Franciscan  school  of  Scholasticism.  But  he  is  chiefly 
revered  as  the  Doctor  of  Mary.  When  the  question  of  the 
Immaculate  Conception  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  was  dividing 
the  most  eminent  theologians  of  the  time,  it  was  he  who 
boldly  proclaimed  this  prerogative  of  the  Mother  of  God — 
a  doctrine  which  some  550  years  later  was  solemnly  declared 
a  dogma  of  the  Catholic  Church.  Fr.  Roger  Bacon  is  justly 
styled  the  father  of  experimental  philosophy.  As  his  numer- 
ous writings  amply  testify,  there  was  literally  no  field  of 
science  that  he  did  not  cultivate.  In  the  natural  sciences, 
he  was  far  in  advance  of  his  time.    At  the  unveiling  of  a 

53.  Felder,  pp.  412  seq. 

54.  Parkinson,  pp.  77  seq.,  205. 

55.  Digby,  Mores  CathoUci,  Vol.  IV,  p.  139 ;  Parkinson,  p.  59. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION      25 

statue  to  his  memory,  five  years  ago,  a  speaker  declared  this 
distinguished  friar  to  be  "one  of  the  most  eminent  as  well 
as  one  of  the  most  mysterious  men  that  science  has  pro- 
duced." It  is  related  that  for  some  marvelous  invention  of 
his,  he  was  accused  of  witchcraft.  The  friar  readily  sub- 
mitted the  case  to  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  in  Rome. 
Needless  to  say,  he  was  found  innocent  of  the  charges ; 
whereupon  the  Pope  publicly  exonerated  him,  adding  that 
his  ''only  fault  was  being  wiser  and  more  knowing  than 
others  of  his  time.  "^'^  Fr.  Haymo  of  Faversham,  at  the 
command  of  Gregory  IX,  revised  the  Roman  breviary  and 
missal.  Fr.  Alexander  of  Hales,  the  teacher  of  St.  Bona- 
venture  and  of  St.  Thomas,  was  the  first  to  systemize 
Catholic  theology.  '  Whatever  may  be  advanced  to  discredit 
Hie  name  of  Fr.  "William  Occham,  every  historian  will  agree 
with  Holzapfel  in  reckoning  this  friar  among  the  greatest 
scholars  of  the  Order,  on  account  of  the  far-reaching  in- 
fluence he  exerted  on  higher  learning.  The  first  noteworthy 
encyclopedia  of  the  Middle  Ages,  entitled  De  Proprietatibus 
Rerum,  was  compiled  by  Fr.  Bartholomew,  surnamed  Angli- 
cus.  It  was  the  standard  work  down  to  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury and  was  translated  into  several  languages.^'^  Fr.  John 
Somer  was  probably  the  first  to  visit  the  north  pole  and  to 
measure  the  lands  there  with  his  astrolabe.^^  One  of  the 
most  influential  advocates  for  the  restoration  of  Catholic 
unity  in  the  Church  during  the  Great  Western  Schism  was 
Fr.  Nicholas  Fackingham.^^  Of  the  many  Franciscans  who, 
besides  those  already  mentioned,  deserve  special  notice,  we 
select  a  few;  viz.,  FF.  Henry  of  Oxford,  Adam  of  York, 
Ralph  Rose,  John  of  London,  Hugh  of  Newcastle,  John 
Canon,  Adam  of  Lincoln,  Thomas  Eccleston,  John  Hilton, 
Richard  Middleton,  John  Lathbery,  Robert  Colman,  Wil- 

56.  Parkinson,  p.  111. 

57.  Holzapfel,  pp.  229,  288,  289,  276.     Regarding  Fr.  William  Occham, 
see  Arckivum  Franciscanum  Historicum,  Vol.  VI. 

58.  See  Franciscan  Annals  (Pantasaph,  England),  Vol.  XLIII,  pp.  90 
seq. 

59.  Parkinson,  p.  188.     See  also  Archivum  Franciscanum  Historicum, 
Vol.  I,  pp.  577-600. 


26  FRANCISCANS  AND 

liam  Goddard,  Robert  Finningham,  John  Kynton,  and 
Henry  Standish.  All  these  were  doctors  of  divinity  and 
eminent  writers  on  Catholic  theology  and  philosophy. 

Such  then  was  the  activity  of  the  English  Franciscans 
prior  to  the  Reformation,  as  widespread  and  vigorous  as  it 
was  salutary  and  providential.  "The  English  Francis- 
cans," Parkinson  justly  declares,  "were  no  lazy  drones, 
but  active  good  religious  men,  and  spent  their  time  well, 
to  the  edification  of  their  neighbor,  as  well  as  for  their  own 
improvement.  Some  of  them  indeed  were  wholly  taken  up 
in  contemplation  and  prayer,  but  others  in  study  and  in 
teaching,  others  in  preaching  and  instruction,  and  assisting 
the  people  in  both  spiritual  and  corporal  works  of  mercy, 
others  in  writing  out  the  labors  of  their  learned  brethren 
and  all  principally,  in  the  constant  exercise  of  religion  and 
a  fervorous  tendency  towards  Christian  perfection."^'' 
Cherished  by  high  and  by  low,  they  had  decked  the  shrine 
of  St.  Francis  with  the  flowers  of  sanctity  and  the  laurels 
of  learning.  Now  the  time  was  at  hand  when  they  should 
gather  in  also  the  palms  of  martyrdom  and  join  the  glorious 
ranks  of  those  "who  are  come  out  of  great  tribulation,  and 
have  washed  their  robes,  and  have  made  them  white  in  the 
blood  of  the  Lamb." 

60.  Parkinson,  Preface,  p.  V. 


CHAPTER  II 

CALM    BEFORE    THE   STORM 

Early  reign  of  Henry  VIII — Religious  conditions  in  Eng- 
land— Attitude  toward  papal  supremacy — The  king,  a 
dutiful  child  of  the  Church — The  reform  movement  in 
the  Order  of  St.  Francis — Its  hearing  on  the  Province 
of  England — The  king  well  disposed  toward  the  Fran- 
ciscans. 

Seldom  were  political  and  religious  conditions  more 
auspicious  anywhere  than  in  England  when  Heniy  VIII 
(1509-1547)  ascended  the  throne.  During  the  reign  of  his 
father,  Henry  VII,  whose  victory  over  Richard  III  at  Bos- 
worth  put  an  end  to  the  bloody  War  of  the  Roses,  royal 
ascendancy  gained  a  firm  hold  on  the  minds  and  hearts  of 
the  English.  Though  taxations  had  been  heavy  and  fre- 
quent, the  people  at  large  submitted  when  they  recalled  the 
horrors  of  the  recent  war.  And  now  that  the  first  of  the 
Tudors  had  died  leaving  the  State  treasury  well  filled,  they 
pinned  their  hopes  for  brighter  days  on  his  youthful  suc- 
cessor. 

Endowed  with  rare  qualities  of  mind  and  body,  the 
prince  of  eighteen  summers  fully  vindicated  their  most 
sanguine  hopes.  Shortly  after  his  accession,  he  espoused, 
with  papal  dispensation,  Catherine  of  Aragon,  the  maiden 
widow  of  his  brother  Arthur.  This  only  raised  him  in  the 
esteem  of  the  people ;  the  popularity  of  the  fair  and  pious 
princess  was  naturally  extended  to  him.  What  further  as- 
sured him  of  popular  favor  was  the  fact  that  he  confirmed 
the  general  pardon  granted  by  his  predecessor,  and,  not  only 
offered  compensation  to  those  who  had  been  wronged  dur- 
ing the  preceding  reign,  but  ordered  the  arrest  and  punish- 

27 


28  FRANCISCANS  AND 

ment  of  those  who  had  been  the  chief  abettors  of  the  late 
king's  rapacity.^  His  military  success  in  France  and  Scot- 
land likewise  augured  well  for  the  future.  In  short,  politi- 
cally his  reign  promised  to  be  an  era  of  peace  at  home  and 
of  prestige  abroad ;  and  as  far  as  religious  conditions  were 
concerned,  no  one  ever  fancied  that  within  twenty-five  years 
a  dreadful  upheaval  would  take  place  in  the  realm. 

The  assertion  often  made  by  non-Catholic  historians  that 
on  the  eve  of  the  Reformation  religious  life  in  England  was 
at  a  very  low  ebb,  conflicts  with  the  latest  researches ;  and  to 
say  that  the  religious  revolution  was  but  the  inevitable  out- 
come and  culmination  of  Lollardism  is  utterly  unwarranted.^ 
Long  before  Henry's  rupture  with  Rome,  the  heresy  of 
Wyclif  had  sunk  into  the  grave  with  the  heretic  himself. 
It  is  true  that  in  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  there 
were  serious  evils  in  the  Church  of  England  that  needed 
curing.  Of  these  the  most  baneful  was  undoubtedly  the 
worldly  and  mercenary  spirit  that  prevailed  among  the 
nobility  and  the  higher  clergy.  Generally  speaking,  how- 
ever, historians  to-day  agree  that  the  lower  classes  cherished 
and  practiced  their  faith.  Gasquet  remarks  that  "religion 
on  the  eve  of  the  Reformation  was  intimately  bound  up  with 
the  whole  life  of  the  people,  animating  it  and  penetrating 
it  at  every  point."  This  refutes  the  oft-repeated  charge 
that  also  the  lower  clergy,  regular  as  well  as  secular,  were 
wanting  in  virtue  and  zeal  and  that  in  consequence  they 
had  forfeited  the  respect  and  confidence  of  the  people.  It 
was  Blessed  Thomas  More  who  argued  that,  if  religious  con- 
ditions among  the  laity  were  good,  corruption  among  the 
clergy  could  not  have  been  so  general. 

Unshaken  was  also  the  belief  of  the  English  nation  in 
the  spiritual  supremacy  of  the  Pope.  Of  course,  the  full 
import  of  this  doctrine  was  then  not  so  clearly  defined  as 
it  is  to-day.  Repeatedly,  disputes  arose  between  the  Church 
and  the  State,  especially  regarding  ecclesiastical  immuni- 

1.  Llngard,  History  of  England,  Vol.  IV,  p.  169. 

2.  See  Gasquet,  The  Eve  of  the  Reformation,  pp.  184  seq. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION      29 

ties  and  exemptions.  Although  it  was  again  principally 
among  the  upper  classes  that  loyalty  to  the  Holy  See  was 
not  what  it  should  have  been,  certain  it  is  that  the  nation  as 
such  recognized  only  one  supreme  head  in  the  Church, 
namely  the  Bishop  of  Rome.  The  theory  of  royal  supremacy 
did  not  emanate  from  the  convictions  of  the  people,  but 
from  the  pride  and  covetousness  of  the  crown.^ 

As  to  .the  king  himself,  history  assures  us  that  during  the 
first  years  of  his  reign  he  was  singularly  well  disposed  to- 
ward the  Church  and  humbly  submissive  to  her  doctrine  and 
discipline.  It  is  thought  that  he  had  been  destined  for  the 
sacred  ministry,  but  that  this  plan  had  to  be  abandoned  on 
the  premature  death  of  his  elder  brother  Arthur.  Be  this  as 
it  may,  Henry's  thorough  training  not  only  in  Christian 
humanism  but  also  in  theology  under  the  direction  of  Car- 
dinal Fisher  made  him  a  man  of  firm  religious  convictions. 
Although  he  was  of  a  gay  and  chivalrous  disposition,  de- 
lighting in  the  sports  and  justs  and  other  popular  amuse- 
ments of  the  time,  there  is  nothing  on  record  that  points 
to  a  base  and  corrupt  heart.  When  on  a  hunt,  he  was  wont 
daily  to  hear  three  holy  Masses,  and  on  other  days  often 
four  or  five.  Every  day  he  assisted  at  Vespers  and  Com- 
pline in  the  Queen's  chapel.  He  seems  to  have  fostered  a 
great  devotion  to  the  Blessed  Virgin,  in  whose  honor,  it  is 
said,  he  told  his  beads  every  day.  In  1505,  and  again  in 
1510,  he  made  a  pilgrimage  to  Our  Lady's  shrine  at  Wal- 
singham.  Spelman  relates  that  he  walked  barefoot  to  this 
place  from  Baseham,  a  distance  of  three  miles,  that  he  pre- 
sented the  shrine  with  a  precious  necklace,  and  that  at  his 
own  expense  he  had  new  windows  put  in  the  chapel.  It  is 
known,  too,  that  in  1522  he  accompanied  Emperor  Charles  V 
on  a  pilgrimage  to  Canterbury,  where  the  two  monarchs, 
having  attended  high  Mass  and  received  Holy  Communion, 
knelt  in  prayer  at  the  tomjb  of  St.  Thomas  a  Becket.* 

3.  Ibidem,  pp.  70  seq. 

4.  Du  Boys,  Catherine  D'Aragon,  pp.  102,  106  ;  Hope,  The  First  Divorce 
of  Henry  VIII,  p.  24  ;  Timbs,  Abbeys  .  ...  of  England  and  Wales,  VoJ. 
I,  p.  543. 


30  FRANCISCANS  AND 

During  the  political  troubles  between  Pope  Julius  II  and 
the  King  of  France,  Henry  VIII  faithfully  upheld  the  rights 
of  the  Papacy  and  openly  espoused  the  cause  of  the  Holy 
League.  When  Martin  Luther  attacked  the  doctrine  of  the 
Church  and  rebelled  against  the  authority  of  the  Pope,  the 
English  king  was  among  the  first  to  raise  his  voice  in  solemn 
protest.  In  1522,  he  wrote  his  famous  Assertio  Septem  Sac- 
ranientorum  in  reply  to  Luther 's  heretical  tenets.  . On  being 
warned  by  Blessed  Thomas  More  that  in  this  work  he  had 
unduly  emphasized  the  authority  of  the  Pope  as  a  temporal 
prince,  Henry  uttered  the  remarkable  words:  "We  are  so 
much  bounded  unto  the  see  of  Rome  that  we  can  not  do  too 
much  honor  unto  it.  Whatsoever  impediment  be  to  the  con- 
trary, we  will  set  forth  that  authority  to  the  uttermost,  for 
we  received  from  that  see  our  crown  imperial. '  '^  The  book 
was  presented  to  the  Pope  by  the  English  ambassador  in 
Rome,  Dr.  John  Clarke.  In  grateful  acknowledgement, 
Leo  X  issued  a  Bull  in  which  he  bestowed  on  Henry  the 
honorable  title  of  Defender  of  the  Faith — a  title  which, 
strange  to  say,  the  English  crown  carries  to  the  present  day. 
On  not  less  than  three  different  occasions,  the  Vicar  of 
Christ  honored  Henry  with  the  golden  rose  as  a  mark  of 
special  esteem  and  gratitude  for  services  rendered  to  the 
Church.*  So  deep-rooted  was  his  allegiance  to  the  Holy  See 
that  even  when  about  to  usurp  its  spiritual  supremacy  he 
compelled  Cranmer  to  take  the  usual  oath  of  obedience  to 
the  See  of  Rome.^  In  fine,  whatever  his  private  life  may 
have  been,  certain  it  is  that  during  the  first  years  of  his 
reign  the  Church  and  its  supreme  head  had  a  firm  hold  on 
the  affections  of  the  king  as  well  as  of  the  English  nation  at 
large. 

To  enable  the  reader  to  understand  and  appreciate  the 

5.  Thus  Blessed  Thomas  More  publicly  testified  at  his  trial  on  being 
accused  of  having  induced  Henry  to  maintain  in  his  book  the  authority  ot 
the  Pope  so  as  thereby  "to  put  a  sword  in  the  Pope's  hand  to  fight  against" 
the  king.     See  Roper,  Life  of  8ir  Thomas  More,  Knt.,  p.  67. 

6.  Annually,  on  the  fourth  Sunday  of  Lent,  the  Holy  Father  solemnly 
blesses  a  golden  rose,  which  he  later  presents  to  some  person  or  place  of 
distinction.     See  The  Catholic  Enci/clopedia,  Vol.  VI,  p.  630. 

7.  Dodd,  Church  History  of  England,  Vol.  I,  p.  71. 


THE  PKOTESTANT  REVOLUTION      31 

heroic  zeal  of  the  English  Franciscans  for  truth  and  mor- 
ality during  the  subsequent  religious  upheaval,  it  will  be 
necessary  to  insert  a.  brief  account  of  the  Observant  reform 
in  the  Order  of  St.  Francis  and  of  its  bearing  on  the  history 
of  the  English  province.  Soon  after  the  death  of  St. 
Francis,  diversities  of  opinion  and  practice  arose  in  the 
Order  regarding  the  observance  of  the  vow  of  poverty. 
While  a  number  of  brethren,  supported  by  influential  men 
in  and  out  of  the  Order,  sought  to  mitigate  the  severity  of 
the  fourth  chapter  of  the  Franciscan  Rule,  others  advocated 
and  observed  renunciation  of  corporate  as  well  as  private 
ownership  of  temporalities.  During  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, these  dil¥erences  became  more  pronounced.  Those 
who  following  Blessed  Paul  de  Trinci  labored  for  the  reform 
of  the  Order  were  called  Observants;  while  the  others  who 
with  papal  dispensations  held  property  in  common,  went  by 
tne  name  of  Conventuals.^  In  the  next  century,  the  reform 
movement  was  greatly  furthered  by  four  saintly  friars 
known  as  the  pillars  of  Observantism ;  viz.,  St,  Bernardine 
of  Siena,  St.  John  Capistran,  St.  James  della  Marca,  and  Bl. 
Albert  of  Sartiano.  Through  their  untiring  efforts,  the 
reform  spread  rapidly  over  entire  Europe,  so  that  by  the 
eve  of  the  Reformation  the  Franciscans  had  returned  in 
great  numbers  to  the  original  observance  of  the  Rule.  In 
the  various  provinces  of  the  Order,  there  were  about  1,500 
Observant  houses,  in  which,  to  make  a  rough  estimate,  some 
30,000  friars  resided.  A  definite  separation  was  finally 
made  by  Pope  Leo  X,  in  1517,  so  that  henceforth  there  ex- 
isted two  distinct  branches  of  the  Order,  the  Observants 
and  the  Conventuals.® 

According  to  Parkinson,  it  is  probable  that  this  Observ- 
ant movement  reached  the  English  province  early  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  and  it  it  was  gradually  adopted  by  most 

8.  Throughout  the  present  narrative,  we  designate  the  former  by  the 
term  Franciscan.?,  the  latter  by  the  term  Conventuals. 

9.  See  Holzapfel,  Oeschichtc  des  Franziskanevordens. 


32  FRANCISCANS  AND 

of  the  friars.^"  We  know,  for  instance,  that  in  1454,  St. 
John  Capistran,  then  vicar  general  of  the  Franciscans, 
addressed  a  letter  to  Henry  VI  of  England,  thanking  him 
among  other  things  for  his  promise  to  have  friaries  erected 
for  the  brethren  of  the  reform.  At  the  chapters  held  in 
Palencia  (1470)  and  at  Bruges  (1484)  England  was  reck- 
oned a  province  of  the  reform.  The  chapter  held  at  Mechlin 
(1499)  unanimously  resolved  "that  the  province  of  England 
having  now  a  competent  number  of  convents  should  here- 
after have  two  votes  in  all  general  chapters,  after  the  manner 
of  other  reformed  provinces."  Finally,  it  is  known  that 
already  in  1502,  the  English  Conventuals  agreed  to  exchange 
their  religious  garb  for  the  poorer  and  coarser  habit  of  their 
reformed  brethren. 

Although  the  exact  number  of  Franciscan  friaries  in 
England  can  not  be  ascertained,  we  know  that  in  1481  Pope 
Sixtus  IV  gave  certain  English  nobles  a  grant  to  erect  such 
friaries.  Later,  Heniy  VII  built  three  convents  for  the 
Franciscans  at  Greenwich,  Newark,  and  Richmond  in 
Surrey,  and  caused  the  Conventuals  to  cede  to  them  their 
houses  at  Canterbury,  Newcastle,  and  Southampton.  Park- 
inson thinks  that  after  1517,  almost  all  the  sons  of  St.  Fran- 
cis in  England  had  accepted  the  reform,  since  after  that 
year  he  finds  no  mention  of  Conventual  chapters  or  pro- 
vincials.^^ Apparently,  the  reform  movement  does  not  seem 
to  have  essentially  marred  the  unity  of  the  province.  All 
the  friars  in  England  ''were,"  as  Parkinson  puts  it,  ''in 
effect  true  observers  of  their  Founder 's  Rule,  and  made  up 
one  community.  Furthermore,  in  1498,  the  Franciscans 
held  their  chapter  at  the  Grey  Friars^^  in  London,  which  was 
not  reckoned  one  of  their  houses.^^  And,  as  will  be  seen 
later,  at  the  time  of  the  general  suppression  of  the  province, 

10.  Parkinson,  The  Antiquities  of  the  English  Franciscans,  pp.  203, 
206,  207,  211,  213  ;  Annales  Minorum,  Vol.  V,  p.  106  ;  Vol.  VI,  pp.  112,  709  ; 
Vol.  VII,  pp.  176,  407. 

11.  Parkinson,  pp.  207,  216,  220. 

12.  In  England,  the  sons  of  St.  Francis  went  by  this  name  on  account 
of  the  color  of  their  habit. 

13.  Thaddeus,  The  Franciscans  in  England,  p.  14. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  33 

about  1539,  by  far  the  greater  number  of  its  friaries  were 
found  to  be  strictly  in  keeping  with  the  original  severity  of 
the  Rule,  depending  for  their  daily  subsistence  on  the 
charity  of  the  people.  ' '  The  truth  of  the  thing  is, ' '  Parkin- 
son assures  us,  "that  few  of  the  Franciscan  convents  in 
England  enjoyed  any  rents,  and  therefore  it  was  easy  enough 
for  most  of  them  to  join  in  the  reformation  (of  the  Order)  ; 
as  in  effect  they  did,  though  they  continued  in  their  own 
convents,  by  reason  of  the  different  degrees  of  their  reforma- 
tion and  observance  of  the  Rule  of  St.  Francis."  This 
much  then  is  certain,  that  on  the  eve  of  the  religious  troubles, 
the  greater  number  of  the  English  friars  were  true  followers 
of  St.  Francis,  and  together  with  the  Carthusians  and  Brig- 
ittines  formed  the  most  zealous  and  most  popidar  body  of 
religious  in  England. 

It  was  but  natural  for  Henry  VIII,  so  sincerely  devoted 
to  the  interest  and  welfare  of  the  Church,  to  imitate  his 
immediate  predecessors  in  their  friendly  attitude  toward 
the  Franciscans.  "At  the  beginning  of  his  reign,"  writes 
Stone,  "he  had  shown  them  special  favor,  had  written  more 
than  once  to  the  Pope  on  their  behalf,  declaring  that  he  had 
the  most  deep  and  devoted  affection  towards  them,  and  that 
he  found  it  quite  impossible  to  describe  their  merits  as  they 
deserved.  They  presented,  he  said,  an  ideal  of  Christian 
poverty,  sincerity,  and  charity ;  their  lives  were  devoted  to 
fasting,  watching,  prayer ;  and  they  were  occupied  in  hard 
toil,  by  night  and  day,  to  win  sinners  back  to  God. '  '^*  Their 
friary  and  church  at  Greenwich  adjoined  the  royal  palace, 
where  Henry  was  born,  and  where  he  usually  resided  after 
his  accession  to  the  throne.  Here  with  his  saintly  consort, 
Queen  Catherine  of  Aragon,  who  was  a  Tertiary  of  St. 
Francis,  he  attended  divine  services.  For  another  Tertiary, 
Bl.  Thomas  More,  whose  life  was  so  intimately  bound  up 
with  court  affairs,  he  entertained  the  highest  regard.  For 
almost  ten  years,  his  confessor  was  Fr.  Stephen  Baron,  who 

14.  Stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  1,  on  the  authority  of  Ellis'e  Orig- 
inal Letters. 


34  FRANCISCANS  AND 

was  provincial  in  1520,  and  who  wrote  a  book  for  the  benefit 
of  the  king,  entitled  On  the  Government  of  Princes}^  When 
the  Franciscans  in  Palestine,  hard  pressed  by  the  Turkish 
hordes  under  Selim,  were  at  last  compelled  to  flee  to  Cyprus, 
Henry  VIII  personally  wrote  to  them,^*  assuring  them  that 
since  his  tenderest  years  he  had  always  revered  the  sons  of 
St.  Francis,  and  that  henceforth  he  would  send  them  an 
annual  alms  of  1,000  scudi  for  the  maintenance  of  the  Holy 
Places.  Again  it  was  a  Franciscan,  Fr.  John  Kynton,  doctor 
of  divinity  at  Oxford,  whom  the  king,  in  1521,  engaged  to 
write  a  defence  of  Catholic  doctrine  against  Luther.^^ 

15.  Mason,  Certamen  Seraphicum,  p.  292  ;  Parkinson,  p.  222. 

16.  For  a  copy  of  this  letter,  dated  November  23,  1516,  see  Annalea 
Minorum,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  53. 

17.  Parkinson,  p.  222;  Dodd,  Vol.  I,  p.  237. 


CHAPTER  III 

FIRST  RUMBLINGS  OF  THE  STORM 

Henry  seeks  divorce  from  Catherine  of  Aragon—He  repudi- 
ates her  and  marries  Anne  Boleyn — The  Franciscans  and 
the  king's  "secret  affair"— Fr.  William  Pcyto  puhlicly 
rebukes  the  king  and  his  court — Fr.  John  Elstow  and 
Dr.  Curwin — The  two  friars  before  the  king — Banished. 

It  was  not  political  interest  but  mutual  affection  and 
esteem  that  had  joined  Henry  VIII  and  Catherine  of  Aragon 
in  the  bonds  of  wedlock.  As  years  wore  on,  however, 
Henry 's  attitude  toward  his  saintly  queen  underwent  a  sad 
change.  Of  the  various  causes  that  conspired  to  divert  him 
from  the  path  of  duty,  the  principal  one  was  the  loose  life  at 
court.  Some  historians  assert  that  it  is  doubtful  whether 
he  was  ever  a  faithful  husband.  How  far  Henry  in  this 
respect  shared  the  disgrace  of  other  crowned  heads  of  his 
time,  it  would  be  hard  to  determine.  At  all  events,  his  fre- 
quent addresses  to  persons  of  indifferent  morals  were  suffi- 
cient cause  for  alarm.  The  queen,  no  doubt,  had  her  sus- 
picions, but  for  obvious  reasons  remained  silent;  while 
Cardinal  Wolsey,  who  could  and  should  have  warned  the 
heedless  king,  refrained  from  doing  so  on  personal  as  well  as 
on  political  grounds.^  Hence,  in  1527,  when  Henry's  pas- 
sion for  Anne  Boleyn,  a  lady  in  the  Queen's  household,  had 
got  the  better  of  him,  he  openly  urged  the  question  of  a 
divorce  from  Catherine,  feigning  scruples  of  conscience 
regarding  the  validity  of  the  dispensation  he  had  obtained 
from  Rome  to  marry  her.  The  case  was  eventually  brought 
before  the  Roman  court,  and  the  Pope  appointed  a  special 

1.  Harpsfield  and  two  other  contemporary  chroniclers  even  assert  that 
Wolsey  and  Longland,  then  confessor  to  Henry  VIII,  were  the  first  to  raise 
serious  doubts  in  the  king's  mind  regarding  the  validity  of  his  marriage 
with  Catherine  of  Aragon.     See  Bu  Boys,  Catherine  D'Aragon,  pp.  149  seq. 

35 


36  FRANCISCANS  AND 

commission  to  examine  it.  All  during  the  lengthy  and  com- 
plicated proceedings  of  this  commission,  the  king  as  well  as 
his  cringing  partisans  among  the  nobility  and  higher  clergy 
knew  fully  well  that  Catherine  was  his  lawful  consort,  and 
that  his  alleged  fear  of  living  in  illegal  wedlock  with  her 
was  merely  a  cloak  to  hide  the  foulness  of  his  heart. 

This  became  clear  when,  seeing  that  the  papal  commission 
would  ultimately  declare  against  the  projected  divorce,  he 
anticipated  its  decision,  repudiated  Queen  Catherine,  and 
secretly  married  Anne  Boleyn.  The  sacrilegious  ceremony 
took  place  on  January  25,  1533,  in  the  private  chapel  of  the 
royal  palace  at  Whitehall.^  It  was  performed  by  Rowland 
Lee,  but  only  after  the  lying  king  had  assured  the  chaplain 
' '  that  he  had  got  a  license  from  the  Pope  to  marry  another 
wife,  but  to  avoid  disturbance  he  wished  the  ceremony  to 
take  place  very  secretly."^  On  Saturday,  May  10,  Cran- 
mer,  who  had  just  been  consecrated  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, cited  Queen  Catherine  before  his  ecclesiastical  court  at 
Dunstable.  When  she  refused  to  appear,  he  declared  her 
"contumacious."  "Whereupon,  to  the  shame  and  dismay  of 
the  English  nation,  the  pliant  archbishop  publicly  declared 
Henry's  marriage  with  her  null  and  void,  and  announced 
and  confirmed  his  secret  marriage  with  Anne  Boleyn.  The 
ambitious  coquette  was  then  pompously  escorted  from  Green- 
wich to  the  Tower  for  coronation.  The  attending  cere- 
monies bore  the  character  of  a  funeral  rather  than  of  a 
public  festivity.  In  a  letter  dated  May  29,  1533,  the  im- 
perial ambassador  Chapuys  writes  to  Charles  V,  the  nephew 
of  Queen  Catherine,  that  the  "triumph  consisted  entirely  in 
the  multitude  of  those  who  took  part  in  it,  but  all  the  people 
showed  themselves  so  sorry  as  though  it  had  been  a  funeral. 
I  am  told,"  he  continues,  "their  indignation  grows  daily, 
and  that  they  live  in  hope  your  majesty  will  interfere.     On 

2.  That  this  date  is  correct  is  evident  from  the  testimony  of  Chapuys 
and  of  Cranmer.  For  obvious  reasons,  an  earlier  date,  November  14,  1532, 
the  day  when  Henry  and  Anne  sailed  from  Calais,  has  been  assigned  for 
this  sacrilegious  ceremony.  See  Lingard,  History  of  England,  Vol.  V.  p.  2  ; 
Hope,  The  First  Divorce  of  Henry  VIII,  p.  296. 

3.  Hope,   The  First  Divorce  ....   p.   294. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  37 

Saturday,  the  lady  will  pass  all  through  London  and  go 
to  the  king 's  lodging,  and  on  Sunday  to  Westminster,  where 
the  ceremony  of  coronation  will  take  place. '  '* 

Henry  was  not  slow  to  discern  that  his  action  against 
Queen  Catherine  had  roused  a  spirit  of  discontent  among  the 
lower  classes,  and  that  the  sons  of  St.  Francis  had  been  fore- 
most and  loudest  in  creating  it.  Indeed,  from  the  day  his 
"secret  affair"  became  a  topic  of  popular  comment,  the 
Franciscans  endeavored  to  prevent  what  they  clearly  fore- 
saw v/ould  lead  to  serious  consequences.  Traveling  about 
the  country  in  the  discharge  of  their  sacred  duties,  they 
freely  and  fearlessly  acquainted  the  people  with  the  truo 
state  of  the  question  and  thus  gradually  succeeded  in  mold- 
ing public  opinion  against  the  king's  ungodly  design.^ 
"Unspoilt  by  prosperity,"  writes  Stone,  "their  conscience 
unclouded  by  self-interest,  Henry  found  them  far  more 
difficult  to  deal  with  than  either  the  Universities  or  the 
monks.  They  were  intimidated  by  no  threats,  no  promise  of 
preferment  led  them  astray.  The  most  popular  preachers 
were  to  be  found  in  their  ranks,  and  the  king  knew  that  while 
they  were  allowed  to  preach,  the  people  would  be  told  the 
truth,  however  much  he  tried  to  deceive  them."®  Accord- 
ingly, the  very  men  who  only  a  few  years  before  had  stood 
so  high  in  his  favor  and  esteem,  were  now  the  object  of  his 
scorn  and  hatred.  This  he  showed  openly  for  the  first  time 
in  1532,  when  he  wrote  to  their  minister  general,  Fr.  Paul 
Pissotus,  asking  him  to  depose  the  provincial  Blessed  John 
Forest,'^  probably  because  he  suspected  him  of  having  influ- 
enced the  queen,  his  penitent,  in  her  recent  appeal  to  Rome. 
Though  this  made  it  clear  to  the  friars  that  their  position 
was  growing  critical,  it  did  not  intimidate,  much  less  silence 
them. 

Naturally,  their  friary  at  Greenwich,  under  the  very  eyes 
of  the  king  and  his  court,  became  the  storm  center  in  the 

4.  stone  :  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  14,  from  the  Vienna  Archives. 

5.  Mason,  Certamen  Seraphicum.  p.  6. 

6.  Stone,  Faithful  Unto  Drrtth,  p.  5. 

7.  Parkinson,  The  Antiquities  of  the  English  Franciacana,  p.  227. 


38  FRANCISCANS  AND 

coming  conflict.  Its  inmates  enjoyed  the  love  and  respect 
of  the  people,  and  the  king  realized  that  it  was  all-important 
to  make  sure  of  their  sentiments  regarding  his  relations  with 
Anne  Boleyn.  To  this  end,  Thomas  Cromwell  prevailed  on 
one  of  the  lay  brothers  of  the  community,  Richard  Lyst,  by 
name,  to  serve  him  as  spy.^  Through  secret  correspondence 
with  him,  the  wily  minister  soon  learned  that  the  friars  were 
staunch  adherents  of  the  queen,  and  that  they  were  resolved 
to  stand  by  truth  and  justice  no  matter  what  the  conse- 
quences would  be. 

As  one  of  the  chief  agitators  against  the  divorce  the  in- 
forming lay  brother  designated  the  guardian,  Fr.  William 
Peyto,  a  man  of  deep  learning  and  sterling  piety.  He  was 
born  about  the  year  1480,  at  Chesterton  in  Warwickshire. 
After  completing  his  education  at  Oxford,  he  renounced  the 
world  and  joined  the  Franciscan  Order.  In  view  of  his 
learning,  the  university  conferred  on  him  the  academic 
degrees  and  elected  him  a  fellow  of  Queen's  College.  Fr. 
Peyto  had  fully  imbibed  the  spirit  of  St.  Francis,  and  he 
became  a  zealous  promoter  of  the  reform  movement  in  the 
Order.  He  had  at  one  time  been  confessor  to  the  queen  and 
to  Princess  Marj^,  her  only  surviving  child,  and  had  since 
been  elected  guardian  of  the  Greenwich  friary.^  In  this 
way,  he  frequently  came  in  touch  with  the  court,  saw  with 
bitter  regret  how  wicked  flatterers  and  seducers  had  brought 
the  king  to  the  verge  of  perdition. 

On  Sunday,  May  11,  1533,  Fr.  Peyto  had  to  preach  in 
the  Franciscan  church  at  Greenwich.^"     The  king,  whose 

8.  He  subsequently  left  the  Order  and  became  a  secular  priest.  As 
Judas  wages  for  his  treachery,  the  renegade  received  the  vicarage  of  St 
Dunstan's  West.  See  Strickland,  Lives  of  the  Queens  of  England,  Vol.  II, 
p.  653,  footnote.  We  shall  hear  more  of  Fr.  Lyst,  when  we  treat  the  life 
of  Blessed  John  Forest. 

9.  Leon,  Aureole  Siraphique  (Engl,  trans!.),  Vol.  IV,  p.  346;  Stone, 
Mary  the  First,  Queen  of  England,  p.  456. 

10.  The  following  account  of  FF.  Peyto  and  Elstow  Is  taken  from 
Mason,  Certamen  Seraphicutn,  pp.  11-14,  who  drew  from  the  Annals  of 
John  Stow.  Gairdner's  account  based  on  the  State  Papers  (see  Hope,  The 
First  Divorce  ....  pp.  274-279)  differs  considerably  from  Stow's,  espe- 
cially as  regards  the  day  and  the  year  assigned  for  the  event.  According 
to  stow,  Fr.  Elstow  publicly  opposed  Dr.  Curwin  on  Sunday,  May  8,  1533 
(a  later  edition  of  his  Annals  has  May  28,  1533),  while  Gairdner,   pre- 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION      39 

secret  marriage  with  Anne  Boleyn  had  by  this  time  been 
noised  abroad,  was  present,  surrounded  by  his  courtiers. 
This  then  was  the  guardian's  chance  to  sound  a  last  word 
of  rebuke  and  warning.  Presentiments  of  some  impending 
calamity  were  written  on  every  countenance  when  the  fear- 
less friar  ascended  the  pulpit.  After  relating  from  the  Old 
Testament  how  King  Achab  had  been  misguided  by  the  four 
hundred  false  prophets,  and  how  he  had  insulted  and  im- 
prisoned the  true  prophet  Micheas  and  soon  after  died  a 
most  terrible  death,  the  bold  preacher  turned  to  Henry  and 
exclaimed:    "Even  where   the  dogs  licked  the  blood  of 

sumably  on  the  authority  of  the  State  Papers,  says  it  was  on  Easter  Sun- 
day, 1532.  Both  statements  present  difficulties.  Neither  May  8  nor  May 
28  were  Sundays  in  1533 ;  however.  May  18  was  a  Sunday  in  that  year. 
Possibly,  then,  May  8  is  a  typographical  error  and  should  read  May  18  ; 
perhaps,  too,  the  copyist  for  the  later  edition  of  the  Annals  misread  or 
misunderstood  the  Latin  duodetricesima  (28)  for  duodevicesima  (18). 
Accordingly  Pr.  Elstow's  defence  occurred  on  May  18,  and  Fr.  Peyto 
preached  on  the  preceding  Sunday,  May  11,  the  day  after  Queen  Catherine 
was  cited  to  Cranmer's  court  at  Dunstable. 

Cobbett,  in  his  History  of  the  Protestant  Reformation  (p.  51,  foot- 
note), regards  this  solution  as  probable,  while  the  Annales  Minorum  (Vol. 
XIX,  p.  112)  declare  that  Stow  must  be  read  with  caution  (caute  legen- 
dum),  when  he  assigns  1533  as  the  year  in  which  Pr.  Peyto  was  banished. 
Therefore  the  editors  of  Volume  XIX  of  the  Annales,  which  was  published 
in  1914,  place  the  whole  affair  in  the  year  1532,  although  their  reasons  for 
doing  so  do  not  seem  entirely   convincing. 

As  to  the  State  Papers,  we  find  that  In  one  case  at  least  they  make 
contradictory  statements.  On  the  one  hand,  they  contain  a  letter  written 
on  February  4,  1533,  by  Fr.  Richard  Lyst  to  Thomas  Cromwell,  in  which 
the  lay  brother  mentions  Fr.  Peyto  as  one  of  the  chief  agitators  against 
the  King's  divorce  (see  Gasquet,  Henry  VIII  and  the  English  Monasteries, 
p.  158).  On  the  other  hand,  the  same  State  Papers  bring  a  letter  written 
by  Chapuys  to  Emperor  Charles  V,  stating  that  Fr.  Peyto's  sermon  was 
held  on  Easter  Sunday,  1532  (see  Camm,  Lives  of  the  English  Martyrs, 
Vol.  I,  p.  278).  Now  one  of  these  letters  must  be  wrongly  dated.  We 
take  it  to  be  the  second,  for  Lyst  would  hardly  have  incriminated  Fr.  Peyto 
after  the  latter's  banishment ;  and  he  would  have  been  banished  by  this 
time  had  his  sermon  taken  place  ten  months  before. 

Other  rea.sons  which  to  us  seem  to  speak  for  the  correctness  of  Stow's 
account  are  the  following :  1.  That  a  provincial  chapter  was  held  at  Can- 
terbury in  May,  1533,  is  very  probable  ;  first,  because  a  general  chapter 
had  been  held  at  Toulouse  the  preceding  January,  at  which,  as  the  record 
quoted  by  the  Antiales  Minorum  shows,  Fr.  Peyto  was  present;  and  second, 
because,  as  we  know,  during  Lent,  1533,  the  commissary  arrived  to  replace 
Blessed  John  Forest  in  the  provincialship,  which  would  naturally  have 
called  for  a  meeting  of  the  superiors  in  a  chapter. — 2.  Again,  Stow  says 
that  Fr.  Peyto  was  "the  very  first  (primus  omnium)  publicly  to  rebuke 
the  king  for  the  marriage  contracted  with  Anne  Boleyn,"  which  it  seems 
would  have  been  premature  and  even  highly  imprudent  to  do  fourteen 
months  before,  i.e.  in  the  spring  of  1532,  when  the  king's  "secret  affair" 
was  not  yet  a  topic  of  public  comment. — Finally,  in  his  sermon  Fr.  Peyto 
speaks  of  the  marriage  as  a  settled  fact,  as  indeed  it  was,  although  the 
public  solemnities  had  not  yet  taken  place. 


40  FRANCISCANS  AND 

Naboth,  there  shall  they  lick  also  thy  blood,  0  king.  I  am 
that  Micheas,"  he  continued,  "whom  thou  wilt  hate,  because 
I  must  speak  the  truth  and  tell  thee  that  this  marriage  is 
unlawful.  And  although  I  foresee  that  I  shall  have  to  eat 
the  bread  of  affliction  and  drink  the  water  of  sorrow,  yet, 
because  the  Holy  Ghost  has  inspired  and  instructed  me,  I 
needs  must  speak."  Then  he  inveighed  most  vehemently 
against  the  king's  recent  marriage  with  Anne  Boleyn,  and 
conjuring  him  to  leave  the  path  of  crime  and  scandal  and  to 
hearken  to  the  voice  of  conscience,  he  added:  "I  confess 
there  are  many,  yea,  too  many  preachers  who  for  the  sake 
of  temporal  preferment  counsel  thee  otherwise  and  unrea- 
sonably nourish  thy  foolish  and  frail  affections.  And  to 
what  purpose?  Forsooth,  to  procure  fat  benefices,  to  ac- 
quire riches,  to  become  abbots,  to  obtain  episcopal  jurisdic- 
tion and  other  ecclesiastical  dignities ;  and  all  the  while,  alas ! 
by  these  and  similar  means  they  betray  and  ruin  thy  soul, 
thy  honor,  thy  prosperity.  These,  I  dare  say,  are  the  four 
hundred  prophets  whom  the  spirit  of  error  and  deceit  has 
breathed  upon,  and  who  attempt  in  like  manner  to  mislead 
and  deceive  thee.  But  be  on  thy  guard,  0  king,  that  having 
been  deceived  thou  dost  not  pay  the  penalty  of  Achab  whose 
blood  the  dogs  licked  up."  Apparently,  the  king  took  this 
first  public  rebuke  with  good  grace.  His  fawning  courtiers, 
however,  were  stung  to  the  quick,  and  henceforth  they  were 
the  avowed  enemies  of  the  dauntless  friars. 

In  the  course  of  the  following  week,  Fr.  Peyto  left  for 
Canterbury  to  attend  the  provincial  chapter,  and  Henry 
resolved  to  make  the  most  of  his  temporary  absence.  To 
undo  the  effects  of  his  sermon  on  the  minds  of  the  people,  he 
engaged  Dr.  Curwin,  a  canon  of  Hereford,  to  preach  a  ser- 
mon on  the  following  Sunday,  May  18,  in  defence  of  his 
marriage.  Dr.  Curwin,  whose  pride  and  ambition  had  long 
since  seared  his  conscience,  hailed  the  opportunity  of  cater- 
ing to  his  royal  master  and  of  thus  securing  his  own  emolu- 
ment. Accordingly,  on  the  following  Sunday,  Henry  and 
his  court  again  assembled  in  the  church  at  Greenwich.  Their 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION      41 

eyes  beamed  with  joy  and  triumph,  when  Dr.  Curwin  un- 
scrupulously denounced  Queen  Catherine  and  in  high-flown 
terms  extolled  the  king  for  marrying  Anne  Boleyn  and 
thereby  ensuring  the  welfare  of  the  kingdom.  Feeling  quite 
safe  in  the  absence  of  Fr,  Peyto,  he  began  to  heap  insults  on 
his  name,  calling  him  a  dog,  a  slanderer,  a  low-minded  and 
beggarly  friar,  a  plotter,  a  rebel,  a  traitor,  and  finally  shout- 
ing in  boastful  defiance, ' '  I  speak  to  thee,  Peyto,  who  makest 
thyself  Micheas,  in  order  to  upbraid  kings ;  but,  now  thou  art 
not  to  be  found,  being  fled  for  fear  and  shame,  since  thou 
art  not  able  to  answer  my  arguments. ' ' 

But  the  foolhardy  speaker  and  his  abettors  had  failed  to 
reckon  with  another  hero  in  the  Franciscan  garb.  Great 
was  their  dismay  and  fury  when,  in  the  midst  of  the  boaster's 
shameless  tirade,  Fr.  John  Elstow  leaped  to  his  feet  and 
exclaimed  from  the  gallery  of  the  church :  * '  Good  sir,  thou 
knowest  that  Fr.  Peyto,  as  he  was  commanded,  has  gone  to 
the  provincial  chapter  assembled  at  Canterbury,  and  that  he 
has  not  fled  for  fear  of  thee.  Thou  knowest  this  very  well. 
To-morrow  he  will  be  here  again.  Meanwhile,  I  am  here  as 
another  Micheas  to  prove  from  Holy  Scripture,  at  the  risk 
of  my  life,  all  those  things  as  true  which  he  hath  taught. 
Here  I  stand  in  readiness,  and  thus,  before  God  and  all 
impartial  judges,  I  challenge  thee  to  this  combat.  Thee, 
thee,  Curwin,  I  take  to  account,  who  art  one  of  those  four 
hundred  prophets,  in  whom  the  spirit  of  falsehood  and  error 
is  wholly  entered ;  to  thee  my  words  are  directed,  who  seekest 
to  establish  by  adultery  the  royal  succession ;  to  thee,  who  art 
betraying  the  king  into  endless  perdition ;  at  thee,  I  say, 
these  words  of  mine  are  aimed,  at  thee,  who  hast  spoken 
more  to  satisfy  thy  own  craving  for  honor  and  promotion, 
than  to  unburden  thy  clogged  conscience  or  to  guard  the 
welfare  of  the  king."  Harpsfield,  who  says  he  heard  the 
whole  account  from  Elstow  himself,  writes:  "Many  other 
things  he  would  have  spoken,  and  much  ado  there  was  to 
stay  him.  At  the  hearing  of  this  the  king  was  cast  into  a 
great  choler  and  in  a  great  heat  commanded  that  these  friars 


42  FRANCISCANS  AND 

should  be  conveyed  thither  where  he  should  never  hear  more 
of  them."" 

On  the  following  day,  Fr.  Peyto  returned  from  Canter- 
bury. His  heart  swelled  with  paternal  pride  and  joy  when 
the  brethren  told  him  how  bravely  one  of  their  number  had 
crossed  swords  with  Dr.  Curwin  and  had  defended  their 
guardian 's  good  name  and  the  rights  of  their  lawful  queen. 
With  words  of  sincere  gratitude  and  admiration,  he  con- 
gratulated Fr.  Elstow,  and  at  the  same  time  exhorted  the 
community  faithfully  to  follow  the  voice  of  conscience  in 
the  hour  of  trial  that  he  felt  was  now  fast  approaching.  His 
presentiments  proved  only  too  true.  That  very  day  a  mes- 
senger summoned  FF.  Peyto  and  Elstow  before  the  king  and 
his  council. 

We  may  picture  to  ourselves  the  menacing  looks  of 
hatred  and  vengeance  that  greeted  the  two  friars  on  their 
entering  the  council  chamber.  Although  their  exterior  be- 
spoke meekness  and  humility,  the  fearless  determination 
written  on  their  countenances  made  it  clear  that  they  were 
ready  to  sacrifice  and  suffer  all  for  conscience's  sake.  On 
being  commanded  to  give  an  explanation  of  their  late  con- 
duet,  Fr.  Peyto  stepped  forward  and  again  rebuked  the  king 
for  his  illicit  relations  with  Anne  Boleyn,  at  the  same  time 
predicting  that,  if  he  persisted  in  his  iniquity,  the  hand  of  a 
just  and  avenging  God  would  fall  heavily  upon  him.  In  the 
course  of  the  hearing,  Henry  Bourchier,  Earl  of  Essex,  ex- 
claimed that  the  two  friars  were  traitors  and  deserved  to  be 
put  in  sacks  and  thrown  alive  into  the  Thames.  But  they 
only  smiled,  and  Fr.  Elstow  turning  to  the  earl,  said  quietly : 
"With  such  things  threaten  those  who  have  riches  and  im- 
mense possessions,  who  clothe  themselves  in  gorgeous  purple, 
and  who  pass  their  days  in  pleasures  and  amusements.  For 
we  account  them  as  nothing;  rather  do  we  rejoice  that  we 
are  driven  hence  for  having  done  our  duty ;  and, ' '  he  added 
pleasantly,  "we  give  a  thousand  thanks  to  God,  since  we 

11.  Quoted  by  Gasquet,  Henry  VIII  ....  Monasteries.  Vol.  I,  p.  163, 
footnote. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION      43 

know  the  way  which  leads  to  heaven  to  be  open  by  water  as 
well  as  by  land ;  and  therefore  it  is  all  the  same  to  us  whether 
we  go  by  this  way  or  by  that." 

Henry  saw  that  it  was  useless  to  bandy  words  with  these 
men  of  God.  He  was  at  a  loss  how  to  proceed  against  them. 
To  send  them  to  the  block  he  dared  not  for  fear  of  the  people, 
who,  he  well  knew,  sympathized  with  his  repudiated  queen 
and  revered  the  sons  of  St.  Francis  for  their  heroic  zeal  in 
her  behalf.  It  was  probably  owing  to  this  circumstance 
that  FF.  Peyto  and  Elstow  escaped  with  their  lives.  For 
the  present,  they  were  imprisoned  and  after  some  time  ban- 
ished from  the  country.  Both  survived  persecution  under 
Henry  VIII  and  later  returned  to  their  friary  at  Greenwich. 

Thus  FF.  Peyto  and  Elstow  were  the  first  publicly  to 
defy  the  English  king,  whose  unbridled  passions  were  bring- 
ing ruin  and  desolation  on  the  Church  and  State  in  England. 
' '  It  is  impossible, ' '  the  Protestant  historian  Cobbett  declares, 
"to  speak  with  sufficient  admiration  of  these  two  men.  Ten 
thousand  victories  by  land  or  sea  would  not  bespeak  such 
heroism  in  the  winners  of  these  victories  as  was  shown  by 
these  friars.  If  the  bishops,  or  only  one-fourth  of  them,  had 
shown  equal  courage,  the  tyrant  would  have  stopped  in  that 
mad  career  which  was  now  on  the  eve  of  producing  so  many 
horrors.  The  stand  made  by  these  friars  was  the  only  in- 
stance of  bold  and  open  resistance,  until  he  had  actually  got 
into  his  murders  and  robberies. '  '^^ 

12.  Cobbett,  History  of  the  Protestant  Reformation,  p.  52. 


CHAPTER  IV 

OUTBREAK  OF  THE  STORM 

Henry's  divorce  and  the  question  of  papal  supremacy — The 
crisis — The  king  usurps  spiritual  supremacy  over  the 
Church  in  England — Meets  with  opposition  from  the 
Franciscans — Contemplates  rigorous  measures  against 
them— A  favorable  opportunity — Elizabeth  Barton,  the 
Holy  Maid  of  Kent — Her  revelations  and  the  king's 
divorce — Two  of  her  adherents:  FF.  Richard  Rishy  and 
Hugh  Rich — The  "public  penance" — The  two  friars 
defend  the  Pope's  spiritual  supremacy — Accused  of  high 
treason — The  first  martyrs  for  the  faith. 

The  question  of  the  king's  divorce  was  intimately  con- 
nected with  the  question  of  papal  supremacy  in  spiritual 
matters.  Henry  VIII  had  married  Catherine  of  Aragon 
after  Pope  Julius  had  granted  the  required  dispensation; 
and  now,  when  the  king  wished  to  annul  this  marriage,  he 
again  appealed  to  the  supreme  head  of  the  Church  as  the 
one  and  only  competent  authority  to  loose  the  bond.  What 
he  sought,  however,  was  not  an  unbiased  decision  for  the 
quieting  of  his  alleged  scruples,  but  an  annulment  of  the 
marriage  for  the  gratification  of  his  unholy  passions.  "Let 
the  Pope  pronounce  sentence  in  my  favor,"  he  declared, 
"and  I  will  admit  his  authority,  else  it  shall  not  be  ad- 
mitted."^ Already  in  1532,  Pope  Clement  VII  wrote  to 
Henry  threatening  him  with  excommunication  if  within  a 
month  after  receiving  the  letter  he  should  still  refuse  to 
dismiss  Anne  Boleyn  and  take  back  his  lawful  queen,  until 
the  papal  court  had  passed  judgment.^     But  the  king  wan- 

1.  stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  27. 

2,  For  a  copy  of  this  letter  see  Dodd,  Church  History  of  England, 
Vol.  I,  pp.  288  seq. 

44 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  45 

tonly  disregarded  the  Pope 's  admonition,  so  that  finally  his 
Holiness,  on  July  11, 1533,  definitely  passed  sentence,  declar- 
ing that  the  marriage  with  Anne  Boleyn  was  null  and  void, 
and  that  the  king  had  incurred  the  greater  excommunication, 
which  would  not  go  into  effect,  however,  till  the  end  of  Sep- 
tember-, so  as  to  give  to  the  king  ample  time  for  reflection.^ 

This  action  of  the  Holy  See  brought  matters  to  a  crisis. 
During  the  remainder  of  the  year  1533,  negotiations  between 
the  Roman  court  and  Henry's  agents  continued.  The  king 
dreaded  the  impending  excommunication  and  urged  his 
agents  to  do  all  in  their  power  to  prevent  its  promulgation. 
Great,  too,  was  his  disappointment,  when  it  was  learned  that 
the  child,  which  Anne  Boleyn  bore  him  on  September  8,  was 
a  girl.  From  then  on  his  affection  for  the  ambitious 
coquette  cooled  perceptibly.  From  Chapuy's  correspond- 
ence it  appears  that  at  this  time  the  unhappy  king  suggested 
or  even  concluded  an  agreement  with  Charles  V  to  reinstate 
Catherine  in  her  rights.  But  political  considerations  stood 
in  the  way,  while  self-seeking  courtiers  prompted  him  to 
defy  the  Pope 's  threat  and  to  take  the  divorce  matter  into  his 
own  hands.  When,  therefore,  early  in  December,  the  papal 
Bull  of  excommunication  was  delivered  to  him  by  Thomas 
Cromwell,  he  grew  desperate,  and  the  following  spring  had 
parliament  pass  a  bill,  vesting  him  with  powers  that  hitherto 
had  been  exercised  solely  by  the  Pope  as  spiritual  head  of 
the  Church,  and  demanding  that  all  priests  and  religious  in 
the  realm  defend  this  new  royal  prerogative  publicly  in  their 
sermons.* 

As  Henry  and  his  party  had  expected,  the  Franciscans 
soon  proved  as  fearless  and  outspoken  in  opposing  his 
usurped  title  and  authority  as  they  had  been  in  upholding 
the  rights  of  his  outraged  queen.  While  jurists  and  divines 
debated  on  the  nature  and  scope  of  papal  supremacy,  the 
friars,  directed  by  their  holy  Rule  from  the  start,  espoused 
the  cause  of  the  Pope.     The  boldness  of  FF.  Peyto  and  Els- 

3.  For  the  text  of  this  papal  definition  see  Pocock,  Records  of  the 
Reformation,  Vol.  II,  p.  677. 

4.  Hope,  First  Divorce  of  Henry  VIII,  pp.  332,  343. 


46  FRANCISCANS  AND 

tow  and  the  effect  of  their  action  on  the  people  had  not  been 
forgotten.  Hence,  they  and  their  confreres  were  mentioned 
in  particular  when  orders  were  issued  to  the  effect  that  no 
one  was  to  occupy  a  pulpit  in  England  unless  he  would 
undertake  to  defend  the  king's  supremacy.^  Could  he  but 
have  won  them  over  to  his  side,  to  gain  the  people  for  his 
cause  would  then  be  an  easj^  matter.  This  thought  it  prob- 
ably was  that  induced  him  to  have  the  child  of  Anne  Boleyn 
baptized  in  the  Franciscan  church  at  Greenwich  with  utmost 
splendor  and  solemnity.  But  the  friars  were  insensible  to 
royal  blandishments  when  higher  duties  were  at  stake ;  and 
the  king  had  to  hear  to  his  dismay  that  all  over  England  they 
were  publicly  denouncing  his  rupture  with  Rome.  Now  his 
rage  knew  no  bounds,  and  goaded  on  by  those  who  had  rea- 
son to  hate  the  friars,  he  determined  to  strike  terror  into 
them  and  into  the  nation  at  large. 

A  favorable  opportunity  was  not  long  in  presenting 
itself.  Near  Canterbury,  where  the  Franciscans  had  a 
friary,  lived  Elizabeth  Barton,  who  seemed  to  be  favored  by 
Heaven  with  visions  and  ecstacies.^  Ever  since  1525,  her 
revelations  were  causing  a  stir  among  the  people ;  wherefore 
William  Warham,  the  zealous  and  prudent  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  appointed  a  commission  of  learned  priests  to 
investigate  the  matter.  Of  their  number  were  two  Francis- 
cans, presumably  of  Canterbury.''  The  report  of  the  com- 
mission was  favorable  to  the  Holy  Maid  of  Kent,  as  Elizabeth 
was  called,  so  that  when  she  applied  for  admission  into  the 
Benedictine  nunnery  of  St.  Sepulcher,  near  by,  the  arch- 
bishop readily  gave  his  consent.  In  the  convent,  her  strange 
visions  and  ecstacies  continued.  What  especially  caused 
comment  among  all  classes  of  society  were  her  bold  utterances 
on  the  king's  relations  with  Anne  Boleyn. 

At  first,  Henry  gave  the  affair  little  attention.     But 

5.  Ibidem,  p.  344. 

6.  The  following  account  regarding  Elizabetli  Barton  is  based  chiefly 
on  Gasquet,  Henry  VIII  and  the  English  Monasteries,  Vol.  I,  chap.  iv.  See 
also  Wright,  Suppression  of  Monasteries,  letters  VI-XIII. 

7.  Gasquet  (p.  112)  has  "Father  Lewis  and  his  fellow  (two  observ- 
ants)", on  the  authority  of  Lambard. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  47 

about  midsummer,  1533,  shortly  after  his  secret  marriage 
with  Anne  was  proclaimed  to  the  kingdom,  the  Holy  Maid 
declared  it  had  been  revealed  to  her  to  go  and  tell  him  "that 
if  he  went  forward  with  the  purpose  that  he  intended,  he 
would  not  be  king  of  England  seven  months  later;"  and 
added  that  "this  punishment  would  be  brought  about,  not 
by  any  temporal  or  worldly  power,  but  by  God  alone. '  '^  On 
hearing  this,  Henry  became  much  alarmed  and  had  the 
nun  and  those  who  were  supposed  to  have  advised  and 
favored  her  thrown  into  the  Tower.  Among  these  were  FF. 
Richard  Risby  and  Hugh  Rich,  guardians  of  Canterbury  and 
Richmond. 

In  order  to  delude  the  people  and  to  give  his  procedings 
the  semblance  of  justice,  it  was  deemed  necessary  to  blacken 
the  character  of  the  Maid  of  Kent.  Of  this  foul  plan  Crom- 
well and  Cranmer  were  eager  abettors.  About  the  month 
of  October,  1533,  they  subjected  the  nun  and  her  adherents 
to  a  strict  examination  in  the  star  chamber,  and  then  spread 
the  false  report  that  the  nun  had  signed  a  statement,  in 
which  she  confessed  her  visions  and  ecstasies  to  have  been  a 
fraud  to  arouse  popular  sentiment  against  the  king.  On 
November  23,  she  and  her  supposed  accomplices  were  com- 
pelled to  undergo  a  most  degrading  ceremony.  A  high  scaf- 
fold was  erected  at  St.  Paul's  Cross  in  London,  on  which 
they  were  exposed  as  rebels  and  impostors  to  the  gaze  of  the 
populace.  Dr.  Capon,  Abbot  of  Hyde,  occupied  a  pulpit 
opposite  the  scaffold.  With  a  zeal  worthy  of  a  better  cause, 
he  publicly  defended  his  royal  master  and  branded  his  vic- 
tims as  lying  hypocrites  and  dangerous  plotters  against  the 
king  and  the  country.  The  principal  target  of  his  strictures 
were  the  two  Franciscans,  whom  he  blamed  as  ringleaders  of 
the  whole  affair,  inasmuch  as  by  word  and  deed  they  had 
influenced  others  in  behalf  of  the  nun.  Thereupon,  he  read 
aloud  the  document  w'hich  the  king's  ministers  had  drawn 
up  and  proffered  as  the  nun 's  confession.^     After  this  public 

8.  Hope,  Franciscan  Martyrs  in  England,  p.  40. 

9.  According   to    arey    Friars   Chronicle   in    Monumenta    Franciscana, 
Vol.  II,  p.  196,  a  .similar  "penance"  was  performed  by  them  at  Canterbury. 


48  FRANCISCANS  AND 

humiliation,  the  "penitents"  were  conducted  past  a  large 
concourse  of  people  to  the  Tower.  Henry  was  elated  over 
the  effect  of  this  ceremony  on  the  popular  mind.  To  all 
appearances,  the  people's  faith  in  the  Holy  Maid  had  been 
shaken;  they  were  now  more  favorably  disposed  toward 
him. 

Meanwhile,  the  question  of  his  spiritual  supremacy  had 
become  acute.  The  king  was  bent  on  silencing  those  who 
dared  to  oppose  his  usurped  authority ;  and  since  the  Francis- 
cans had  again  been  foremost  in  this  respect,  he  decided  to 
make  an  example  of  the  two  friars  who  were  already  in 
prison.  Accordingly,  FF.  Risby  and  Rich  were  called  on 
to  hold  a  disputation  with  the  king's  men  on  papal 
supremacy.  Everything  short  of  brutal  force  was  employed 
to  elicit  from  the  friars  a  denial  of  the  Catholic  doctrine. 
But,  neither  promises  nor  threats  could  for  a  moment  shake 
their  constancy.  Finally,  they  were  taken  back  to  prison 
and  tortured  most  cruelly.  Here  again  they  steadfastly 
professed  their  faith,  declaring  themselves  ready  to  suffer  a 
thousand  times  more,  even  death  itself,  rather  than  renounce 
him  whom,  as  children  of  Mother  Church  and  as  followers 
of  St.  Francis,  they  held  to  be  the  only  legitimate  Vicar  of 
Christ  on  earth. 

Henry  was  incensed  when  he  heard  of  their  unflinching 
and  intrepid  constancy.  The  sight  of  Tyburn,  thought  he, 
would  make  their  detested  confreres  quail,  and  the  blood  of 
the  Holy  Maid  of  Kent  and  of  her  adherents  would  quench 
all  enthusiasm  for  the  Pope.  But,  in  order  to  condemn 
them  to  death,  it  was  necessary  to  convict  them  of  some  capi- 
tal offence.  Therefore,  on  March  12,  1534,  parliament  was 
made  to  pass  a  bill  of  attainder,  establishing  it  as  high  trea- 
son to  criticize  the  king 's  marriage  with  Anne  Boleyn  or  in 
any  way  to  uphold  the  supremacy  of  the  Pope.  Now  Henry 
could  act  with  impunity.  Without  any  form  of  trial,  the 
holy  nun  and  her  party  were  pronounced  guilty  of  high 
treason  and  condemned  to  death. 

On  April  20,  1534,  they  were  fastened  on  hurdles  and 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  49 

dragged  to  Tyburn  amid  the  gibes  of  a  deluded  populace.^" 
Faint  with  suffering  and  bespattered  with  mud,  the  poor 
victims  at  last  came  in  sight  of  the  place  of  execution.  On 
a  scaffold  stood  the  gallows  with  a  caldron  of  boiling  water ; 
near  by,  on  a  bench,  lay  an  axe  and  a  huge  knife.  *  One  by 
one  the  martyrs  were  unbound  and  led  below  the  scaffold. 
Elizabeth  Barton  was  the  first  to  suffer.  She  was  hanged 
and  beheaded.  Fr.  Risby  was  then  ordered  to  mount  the 
scaffold.  His  gaze  turned  to  heaven,  he  was  praying  for 
perseverance  in  the  hour  of  trial  and  torture,  when  sud- 
denly a  courier  came  dashing  through  the  crowd  with  a 
message  from  the  king.  Great  was  the  surprise  of  all  when 
it  was  learned  that  his  Majesty  offered  life  and  liberty  to  the 
friars  if  they  would  renounce  the  Pope  and  acknowledge  the 
king  as  supreme  head  of  the  Church  in  England.  After 
reading  the  message  aloud,  the  presiding  officer  turned  to  Fr. 
Risby  and  began  to  extol  the  king's  mercy  and  long-suffer- 
ing. A  look  of  celestial  peace  played  on  the  countenance  of 
the  condemned  friar.  This  was  in  very  deed  what  he  had 
been  hoping  and  praying  for.  Now  he  could  publicly  pro- 
fess his  faith,  for  which  he  was  about  to  undergo  torture  and 
death.  He  listened  in  silence  while  the  officer  spoke.  Then 
raising  his  eyes  heavenward,  he  exclaimed  with  a  loud  and 
resolute  voice,  ' '  Not  only  will  I  not  rebel  against  the  author- 
ity of  the  Pope,  but  I  am  ready  to  suffer  the  most  cruel  death 
for  Holy  Mother  Church."  Hardly  had  he  uttered  this 
heroic  profession  of  faith,  when  the  executioner  rushed  like 
a  madman  on  the  holy  friar,  rudely  flung  the  rope  about  his 
neck  and  thrust  him  from  the  ladder.     Instantly  he  leaped 

10.  The  details  regarding  the  martyrdom  of  the  two  Franciscans  we 
have  drawn  chiefly  from  Bourchier,  Hist.  Eccl.  de  Martyrio  FF.  Ord.  Divi 
Pranoisci  (pp.  6  seq.),  whom  Gasquet  (Vol.  I,  p.  150,  footnote)  considers 
an  authority,  since  he  took  the  Franciscan  habit  in  1557  and  hence  had 
occasion  to  gather  information  from  those  of  his  brethren  as  well  as  from 
others  who  had  known  FF.  Risby  and  Rich. 

11  From  this  declaration  as  well  as  from  the  king's  offer  to  grant 
them  full  pardon.  It  would  seem  that  the  two  friars  suffered  death  for  refus- 
ing to  deny  the  Catholic  doctrine  of  the  spiritual  supremacy  of  the  Bishop 
of  Rome  in  the  Church.  See  Gaudentius,  BedeuUing  und  Verdtemte  dea 
Fram>iskanerordens  im  Kampfe  gegen  den  Protestantismus,  p.  28,  root- 
note  4. 


50  FRANCISCANS  AND 

toward  the  dangling  body  and  cut  the  rope  by  which  it  was 
suspended.  With  a  dismal  thump,  the  body  fell  to  the  floor 
of  the  scaffold.  Now  a  scene  was  enacted  that  can  be  better 
imagined  than  described.  Seizing  the  huge  knife,  the  execu- 
tioner thrust  it  into  the  friar 's  abdomen  and  ripped  open  his 
body.  All  this  while,  the  helpless  victim,  still  living  and 
conscious,  moved  his  lips  in  silent  prayer.  Then  the  execu- 
tioner thrust  his  sacrilegious  hand  through  the  gash  he  had 
made,  tore  out  the  still  palpitating  heart,  held  it  up  to  the 
people  and  exclaimed  in  cold  derision,  *  *  Behold  the  heart  of 
a  traitor,"  Finally,  after  extracting  the  entrails  from  the 
bleeding  corpse  and  throwing  them  into  the  fire,  he  severed 
the  head,  quartered  the  body,  and  threw  the  limbs  into  the 
boiling  caldron ;  later,  they  were  exposed  to  public  view  on 
the  gates  of  London,  while  the  head  was  fastened  to  a  pole 
and  placed  on  London  Bridge. 

All  eyes  turned  toward  Fr.  Rich  when  his  name  was  called. 
With  mingled  emotions  of  pride  and  grief  he  had  witnessed 
the  horrible  sufferings  under  which  his  confrere  had  passed 
to  his  eternal  reward.  Now  it  was  his  turn  to  die  a  similar 
death  for  the  faith.  With  fearless  determination,  he  stepped 
forth  and  mounted  the  ladder.  While  the  executioner  was 
placing  the  rope  about  his  neck,  the  noble  friar  made  the 
offering  of  his  life  to  God  in  the  words  of  the  Royal  Prophet : 
"I  will  freely  sacrifice  to  thee,  and  will  give  praise  to  thy 
name,  0  God :  because  it  is  good. ' '  When  the  officer  in  the 
king 's  name  offered  him  life  and  liberty  if  he  would  do  the 
king's  bidding,  he  smiled  complacently  and  declared  that 
nothing  in  this  life  could  separate  him  from  his  supreme 
Master ;  that,  on  the  contrary,  he  deemed  it  a  privilege  to  be 
allowed  to  die  in  defence  of  Catholic  truth.  This  was 
enough.  Without  further  delay,  he  was  thrown  from  the 
ladder,  cut  down,  and  while  still  living  subjected  to  the  same 
inhuman  treatment  as  Fr.  Risby.  When  the  executioner 
seized  his  heart  to  tear  it  out,  the  martyr  said  with  a  broken 
voice,  *  *  That  which  thou  hast  in  thy  hand  is  consecrated  to 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION      51 

God."     At  this,  the  brutal  executioner  smiled  disdainfully 
and  completed  his  bloody  work." 

As  FF.  Feyto  and  Elstow  had  been  the  first  publicly  to 
denounce  the  king's  wanton  policy  against  his  lawful  queen, 
so  now  again  two  Franciscans  were  among  the  first  to  suffer 
martj'rdom  in  defence  of  papal  supremacy.  Although 
Mother  Church  has  not  yet  conferred  the  honor  of  her  altars 
on  FF.  Risby  and  Rich,^=^  they  are  commemorated  in  the 
Franciscan  Martijrologij,  on  June  3,  in  these  terms:  "At 
London  in  England,  the  suffering  of  the  Blessed  Martyrs, 
Richard  Risby,  guardian  of  the  friary  at  Canterbury,  and 
Hugh  Rich,  likewise  guardian  of  the  friary  at  Richmond, 
who  in  defence  of  the  Catholic  faith,  at  the  command  of 
Henry  VIII,  King  of  England,  were  executed  in  a  horrible 
manner. ' ' 

12.  Besides  FF.  Risby  and  Rich,  two  Benedictines  of  Canterbury  and 
two  secular  priests  were  executed  on  this  occasion. 

13.  That  their  names  are  not  on  the  list  of  the  English  martyrs 
beatified  by  Pope  Leo  XIII  in  1886,  is  probably  owing  to  the  fact  that  their 
martyrdom  antedates  the  formal  passing  of  the  Act  of  Supremacy  by  seven 
months. 


CHAPTER  V 

RAGING  OF  THE   STORM,  1534-1536 

Franciscans  continue  io  oppose  the  king's  divorce  and  Ms 
usurped  supremacy— Fr.  Pccock's  sermon — First  step 
toward  the  suppression  of  their  province — Cromwell^ 
vicegerent  and  vicar  general — Hilsey  and  Browne, 
"grand  visitors"  of  all  mendicant  friars— Their  instruc- 
fions — They  visit  the  Franciscans  at  Richmond  and 
Greenwich — Visitation  of  Southampton — Loyalty  of  the 
friars — All  Franciscans  arrested  and  imprisoned — Their 
friaries  in  the  hands  of  the  king — Subsequent  lot  of  the 
ejected  friars — Some  released  from  prison  and  hanished 
— Many  succuml)  to  the  hardships  of  prison  life. 

Despite  the  rigorous  measures  which  Henry  VIII  had 
taken  against  them,  the  Franciscans  at  home  and  abroad 
were  causing  the  crown  much  trouble  and  anxiety.  Fr. 
Curson,  vicar  of  Greenwich,  exhorted  Fr.  Robinson  of  Rich- 
mond to  hold  a  sermon  at  St.  Paul's  Cross  in  defence  of  their 
lawful  queen.  Furthermore,  he  publicly  praised  the  hero- 
ism which  Fr.  Elstow  had  recently  manifested  and  supplied 
his  needs  during  his  imprisonment  at  Bedford.^  Again,  a 
certain  Fr.  John  Laurence^  informed  Cromwell  that  two  of 
his  brethren,  FF.  Hugh  Payn  and  Cornelius  were  providing 
the  banished  Fr.  Peyto  with  books,  and  that,  as  he  had  rea- 
son to  believe,  they  had  also  visited  the  queen  at  Buckden. 
Both  friars  were  subsequently  arrested  and  examined. 
Though  no  incriminating  evidence  could  be  found  against 
them,  the  friars  nevertheless  declared  themselves  adherents 

1.  Hope,  The  First  Divorce  of  Henry  VIII,  p.  278. 

2.  He  was  a  priest  and  apparently  an  accomplice  of  Fr.  Lyst,  who  com- 
mends him  to  Cromwell,  calling  him  Father  Larans.  See  infra  (John 
Forest,  note  15). 

52 


THE  PROTESTANT  HEVOLUTION      53 

of  the  queen ;  wherefore,  Cromwell,  reporting  the  matter  to 
the  king,  asked  leave  to  have  them  racked.^  One  of  the 
entries  which  Cromwell  made  in  his  Rememhrances  about 
this  time  is  very  significant.  "To  know,"  he  writes, 
"whether  Vaughan  shall  go  forward  or  return.  Touching 
Fr.  Risby  's  examination  of  the  letter  sent  by  Peyto  to  Payn 
the  friar.  To  remember  to  send  for  Friar  Rich  to  Rich- 
mond, of  the  letters  lately  come  from  Rome  to  the  minister 
of  the  Friars  Observants,  and  of  the  communication  between 
Beeke  and  a  friar,  and  to  know  the  effect  of  those  letters, 
which  letters  were  directed  from  Elstow.  To  know  what 
way  the  king  will  take  with  all  the  said  malefactors. ' '  The 
above-mentioned  Stephen  Vaughan  was  one  of  the  spies 
whom  Cromwell  had  sent  abroad  to  gather  information.  On 
August  3,  1533,  he  wrote  to  Cromwell  that  Fr.  Peyto,  who 
was  staying  in  the  Franciscan  friary  at  Antwerp,  had  just 
published  a  book  against  the  king's  divorce,  that  he  was 
visited  every  week  by  a  friar  from  England,  and  that  his 
friends  in  England  were  giving  him  pecuniary  assistance. 
Later,  on  October  21,  he  again  wrote,  saying  that  "Peyto 
like  his  brethren  is  a  hypocrite,  a  tiger  clad  in  sheepskin,  a 
perilous  knave,  and  evil  reporter  of  the  king,  and  ought  to 
be  shamefully  punished.  Would  to  God, ' '  he  adds, ' '  I  could 
get  him  by  any  policy.  I  will  work  what  I  can.  Whatever 
Peyto  does,  I  will  find  means  for  the  king  to  know.  I  have 
laid  a  bait  for  him.  He  can  not  wear  the  cloaks  and  cowls 
sent  over  to  him  from  England,  they  are  so  many."* 

Equally  bold  and  unyielding  were  the  Franciscans  when, 
early  in  the  spring  of  1534,  the  matter  of  royal  supremacy 
came  to  a  head.  Two  of  their  number,  as  we  have  seen, 
were  among  the  first  to  suffer  martj-rdom  for  opposing  it. 
"Of  the  whole  body  of  the  clergj-,"  Gasquet  observes,  "none 
withstood  the  policy  of  Henry  with  greater  fearlessness  and 
pertinacity  of  purpose  than  the  Franciscan  Observants."' 

3.  Stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  19  ;  see  also  Gasquet,  Henry  VIU 
and  the  English  Monasteries,  Vol.  I,  p.  166. 

4.  Ibidem,  pp.  33  seq. 

b.  Gasquet,  Henry  VIII  ....  Monasteries,  Vol.  I,  p.  155, 


54  FRANCISCANS  AND 

On  the  very  eve  of  Henry 's  rupture  with  Rome,  on  Passion 
Sunday,  March  22,  1534,  Fr.  Pecock,  guardian  of  the  friary 
at  Southampton,  preached  in  St.  Swinthin's  cathedral  at 
Winchester.  Though  fully  realizing  the  terrible  conse- 
quences for  himself  as  well  as  for  his  brethren,  the  bold  friar 
openly  defended  the  rights  of  the  Pope.  He  exhorted  his 
hearers  to  imitate  the  example  of  St.  Maurice,  who  suffered 
martyrdom  rather  than  offend  God  by  executing  the  unjust 
demands  of  the  prince.  * '  Here  are  many  hearers, ' '  he  said, 
"and  they  not  all  of  one  capacity.  Some  there  be  that  un- 
derstand me  and  some  peradventure  that  understand  me  not, 
but  otherwise  do  take  me  and  shall  report  me,  that  I  do 
speak  my  mind."  Then,  after  lamenting  the  diversity  of 
opinions  then  agitating  and  misleading  the  public,  he  warned 
his  hearers  against  certain  books  that  had  of  late  been  pub- 
lished to  further  the  cause  of  the  king.  Taking  up  a  volume, 
he  read  a  number  of  authorities  to  prove  that,  according  to 
the  teaching  and  institution  of  Christ,  the  Pope  alone,  as 
successor  of  St.  Peter  in  the  see  of  Rome,  had  supreme  juris- 
diction in  the  Church.  One  of  Cromwell 's  spies  happened  to 
be  present  in  the  church,  and,  on  April  7,  reported  the  mat- 
ter to  his  master.  In  due  time,  the  mayor  of  Southampton 
received  instructions  to  arrest  Fr.  Pecock  and  to  convey  him 
to  London.  The  valiant  preacher  was  brought  before  Crom- 
well, but  at  the  solicitation  of  friends  he  was  permitted  to 
return  to  his  friary.^ 

That  Henry  VIII  was  determined  to  establish  his  usurped 
supremacy  at  any  cost,  became  clear  when,  on  April  20, 1534, 
the  Holy  Maid  of  Kent  and  her  adherents  were  barbarously 
executed  at  Tyburn.  By  this  time,  he  was  fully  convinced 
that  he  would  find  in  the  Franciscans  his  most  formidable 
and  influential  opponents.  Hence,  when  relations  with 
Rome  were  severed  and  he  was  declared  head  of  the  Church 
in  England,  his  first  acts  of  tyranny  were  naturally  directed 
against  them  and  their  friaries.     So  far,  he  had  dealt  only 

6.  Ibidem,  pp.  169  seq. ;  see  also  Stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  pp.  31 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION      55 

with  individual  members  of  their  Order,  apparently  in  the 
hope  that  sooner  or  later  the  others  would  submit.  But  now 
when  he  saw  that  neither  the  banishment  of  FF.  Peyto  and 
Elstow,  nor  the  recent  execution  of  FF.  Risby  and  Rich  had 
in  any  way  intimidated  their  confreres,  he  became  enraged 
and,  urged  on  by  Cromwell  and  his  clique,  decided  on  a  cam- 
paign of  general  persecution  against  his  one-time  friends  and 
favorites. 

Henry's  first  act  as  head  of  the  Church  in  England  was 
to  vest  his  zealous  minister  Thomas  Cromwell  with  unlimited 
powers  in  matters  spiritual.  The  crafty  and  unscrupulous 
politician  was  appointed  vicegerent  and  vicar  general  of  the 
realm  with  authority  to  preside  over  the  meetings  of  the 
clergy.  Wholly  subservient  to  his  royal  master,  he  left 
nothing  undone  to  further  "the  godly  reformation  and  re- 
dress of  errors,  heresies  and  abuses  in  the  said  church."^ 
To  this  end,  John  Hilsey,  a  Dominican,  and  Dr.  George 
Browne,  a  prior  of  the  Augustinian  hermits,  were  made 
superiors  general  and  "grand  visitors"  of  all  the  friaries 
belonging  to  the  mendicant  Orders.^  "Their  instructions 
were  precise  and  intended  to  gauge  the  feeling  of  the  friars 
very  thoroughly.  The  members  of  every  convent  or  friary 
in  England  were  to  be  assembled  in  their  chapter  houses 
and  examined  separately  concerning  their  faith  and  obedi- 
ence to  Henry,  The  oath  of  allegiance  to  Anne  Boleyn  was 
to  be  administered  to  them,  and  they  were  bound  to  swear 
solemnly  that  they  would  preach  and  persuade  the  people  to 
accept  the  royal  supremacy,  to  confess  that  the  Bishop  of 
Rome  had  no  more  power  than  any  other  bishop  and  to  call 
him  Pope  no  longer.  Further,  the  sermons  of  each  preacher 
were  to  be  carefully  examined,  and  if  not  orthodox  they  were 
to  be  burned.  Every  friar  was  to  be  strictly  enjoined  to 
commend  the   king   as   head   of   the   Church,    the   queen, 

7.  Lingard,  History  of  England,  Vol.  V,  p.  25. 

8.  Both  these  traitors  subsequently  received  from  the  king  their 
"thirty  pieces  of  silver"  in  the  shape  of  bishoprics.  John  Hilsey,  after  the 
martyrdom  of  Blessed  John  Fisher,  was  raised  to  the  see  of  Rochester ; 
while  George  Browne  became  Archbishop  of  Dublin. 


56  FRANCISCANS  AND 

the  archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  the  clergy  to  the 
prayers  of  the  faithful.  Lastly,  each  house  was  'to  be 
obliged  to  show  its  gold,  silver,  and  other  movable  goods,  and 
deliver  an  inventory  of  them,'  and  to  take  a  common  oath, 
sealed  with  the  convent  seal,  to  observe  the  above  orders."® 

This  general  visitation  of  all  the  English  friaries  began 
in  the  spring  of  1534.  The  Franciscans  had,  indeed,  little 
mercy  to  expect  from  these  visitors,  and  less  from  the  en- 
raged king  and  his  minister.  Their  two  convents  at  Green- 
wich and  Richmond  had  already  shown  themselves  most  un- 
relenting in  their  opposition  to  the  king's  lawless  policy. 
Hence  they  became  the  first  objects  of  his  wrath  and  venge- 
ance. Rowland  Lee^°  and  Thomas  Bedyll  were  commis- 
sioned to  visit  them  and  to  propose  the  prescribed  articles. 
Shortly  after  the  execution  of  the  two  guardians,  FF.  Rich 
and  Risby,  Cromwell  received  word  from  the  visitors  that 
together  with  the  Carthusians  of  Sheen  who  had  now  taken 
the  required  oaths,  they  were  employing  every  means  to  win 
over  the  neighboring  Franciscans  of  Richmond ;  that  so  far, 
however,  they  had  met  with  little  success,  although  several 
conferences  had  been  held  with  the  friars.  Finally,  on  June 
13,  Dr.  George  Browne  informed  Lee  and  Bedyll  to  bring 
the  matter  regarding  the  friaries  of  Richmond  and  Green- 
wich to  a  speedy  issue.  How  shrewdly  the  royal  visitors  pro- 
ceeded and  how  resolutely  the  friars  defended  the  rights  of 
the  Holy  See,  has  been  handed  down  in  a  letter  which  Crom- 
well received  from  the  two  commissioners  after  the  visita- 
tion." 

Saturday  night,  June  13,  between  ten  and  eleven  o'clock, 
Lee  and  Bedyll  arrived  at  the  friary  of  Ri'chmond.  On  the 
following  morning,  they  opened  legal  proceedings  with  the 
superior  and  one  of  the  senior  friars,  Sebastian  by  name. 
Thereupon,  they  assembled  the  community  and  tried  their 

9.  Gasquet,  Henry  VIII  ....  Monasteries,  Vol.  I,  pp.  173  seq. 

10.  The  same  who  officiated  at  Henry's  secret  marriage  with  Anne 
Boleyn. 

11.  For  a  copy  of  this  letter  see  Wright,  Suppression  of  the  Monas- 
teries, pp.  41  seq.    It  is  on  this  letter  that  the  subsequent  account  is  based. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION      57 

utmost  to  make  them  subscribe  to  the  articles.  But  the 
friars  "showed  themsdves  very  untoward  in  that  behalf." 
Wherefore,  the  cunning  visitors  resorted  to  a  trick.  They 
proposed  that  the  four  discreets  or  councillors  of  the  friary 
be  empowered  by  the  rest  to  decide  and  act  in  the  name  of 
all  and  to  come  the  next  morning  to  the  Greenwich  friary 
with  the  official  convent  seal.  To  this  the  unsuspecting 
brethren  agreed.  Elated  over  their  success,  the  commis- 
sioners departed. 

On  the  following  day,  visitation  was  held  in  the  Green- 
wich friary.  Here,  too,  the  members  of  the  community  were 
one  in  their  opposition  to  the  king 's  demands.  Accordingly, 
the  visitors  advised  them  "to  put  the  whole  matter  in  the 
hands  of  the  seniors  or  discreets, ' '  as  their  brethren  at  Rich- 
mond had  done.  The  royal  agents  later  informed  Cromwell 
that  they  did  this  "to  avoid  superfluous  words  and  idle  rea- 
soning, and  especially  to  provide  that  if  the  discreets  should 
refuse  to  consent,  it  were  better  after  our  minds  to  strain  a 
few  than  a  multitude."  But  the  friars  saw  the  trap  and 
with  one  voice  refused  to  entrust  the  affair  to  the  four  dis- 
creets. The  proposed  articles,  they  rightly  maintained,  con- 
cerned each  member  of  the  community  personally,  and  each 
would  take  the  salvation  of  his  soul  into  his  own  hands. 
The  friars,  therefore,  appeared  individually  before  the  royal 
commissioners,  who  employed  every  means  short  of  torture 
to  make  them  submit  to  the  king's  demands.  But  they  soon 
perceived  that  they  were  dealing  with  men  who  knew  their 
duty  and  who  were  determined  to  fulfill  it  at  all  hazards. 
Neither  threats  nor  promises  could  shake  their  constancy, 
especially  with  regard  to  the  usurped  spiritual  supremacy 
of  the  king.  The  royal  visitors  were  forced  to  admit  that 
they  ' '  found  them  in  one  mind  of  contradiction  and  dissent 
from  the  said  articles,  but  specially  against  this  article :  That 
the  Bishop  of  Rome  must  be  considered  to  possess  no  greater 
authority  or  jurisdiction  than  any  other  individual  bishop 
in  England  or  elsewhere  in  their  respective  diocese."  The 
valiant  friars  argued  that  not  only  the  teaching  of  Christ 


58  FRANCISCANS  AND 

but  also  the  Franciscan  Rule  which  they  had  vowed,  bound 
them  to  loyalty  to  the  Holy  See.  The  wily  visitors  on  their 
part  averred  that  this  commandment  of  their  Rule  did  not 
bind  the  English  Franciscans,  because  there  were  no  mem- 
bers of  the  Order  in  England  when  St.  Francis  wrote  the 
Rule;  that,  furthermore,  the  clause  containing  this  com- 
mandment had  been  inserted  in  the  Rule  by  ambitious  friars, 
who  hoped  thereby  to  gain  the  favor  of  the  Pope,  and  that 
finally  by  the  law  of  God,  which  stood  above  every  religious 
Rule,  they  owed  obedience  and  allegiance  to  their  king. 
Then,  to  back  up  their  sophisms,  they  added  that  both  arch- 
bishops of  the  kingdom,  as  also  the  bishops  of  London,  Win- 
chester, Durham,  and  Bath,  with  many  learned  prelates  and 
famous  clerics  had  already  subscribed  to  the  articles.  But 
the  fearless  friars  remained  firm ;  what  others  in  the  realm 
had  done  in  this  all-important  question  was  of  no  concern  to 
them.  In  short,  all  the  subtle  reasoning  of  Lee  and  Bedyll 
"could  not  sink  into  their  obstinate  heads,  and  worn  in 
custom  of  obedience  to  the  Pope."  Finally,  the  visitors 
departed,  greatly  vexed  at  the  "obstinacy"  of  these  men  of 
God.  "Sorry  we  be,"  they  wrote  to  Cromwell,  "we  can 
not  bring  them  to  no  better  frame  of  mind  and  order  in  this 
behalf,  as  our  faithful  mind  was  to  do,  for  the  accomplish- 
ment of  the  king 's  pleasure. ' ' 

Of  only  one  more  friary  is  mention  made  as  regards  the 
royal  visitation.  When  the  king's  agent,  on  July  15,  came 
to  the  Franciscans  at  Southampton,  the  afore-mentioned 
guardian,  Fr.  Pecock,  finding  the  official  was  not  Dr.  Hilsey, 
as  he  had  reason  to  suppose,  became  suspicious  and  de- 
manded the  visitor's  credentials.  "Not  knowing  what  to 
do,"  the  guardian  later  wrote  to  Cromwell,  "we  desired  him 
to  show  us  his  authority,  and  he  showed  us  a  letter  to  your 
mastership  so  ill-written  that  I  could  not  read  it  plainly, 
under  seal,  as  he  said,  of  Dr.  Hilsey;  and  knowing  that  he 
was  a  wise  father  and  a  good  clerk  we  did  not  believe  it,  but 
begged  him  to  show  us  the  first  writing  again  to  see  whether 
Dr.  Hilsey  had  any  power  to  substitute.    This  he  refused, 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION      59 

and  so  we  would  not  let  him  proceed  and  he  threatened  us 
with  the  king's  displeasure  and  yours. "^^ 

Apparently,  there  are  no  further  records  to  show  how 
the  royal  visitors  fared  in  the  remaining  Franciscan  friaries. 
Still,  from  the  subsequent  proceedings  against  their  inmates 
it  is  quite  clear  that  these  communities,  too,  steadfastly  re- 
fused to  put  their  name  to  the  articles.  Indeed,  the  one 
or  the  other  of  their  number  seems,  at  least  temporarily,  to 
have  declared  himself  willing  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance. 
Thus,  for  instance.  Bishop  Tunstall  wrote  to  Cromwell  on 
November  13,  commending  to  the  king's  mercy  two  Fran- 
ciscans who  had  previously  been  expelled  from  the  friary  at 
Newark  for  adhering  to  the  Pope  and  banished  to  Scotland, 
whence  after  suffering  great  hardships  they  had  returned. 
These  two  friars  were  Thomas  Danyell,  professed  at  Can- 
terbury, and  Henry  Bukkery,  a  lay  brother  not  yet  pro- 
fessed. ' '  Surely, ' '  wrote  Tunstall,  ' '  best  it  were  to  receive 
them  to  mercy,  for  other  fault  we  cannot  find  in  them,  but 
their  obstinacy  to  have  cleaved  heretofore  to  the  Bishop  of 
Rome,  which  now  they  will  leave  and  forsake,  as  they  say  to 
us."  Commenting  on  this  incident,  Stone  says,  "It  was  a 
sorry  triumph  for  the  king  and  Cromwell  that  of  the  whole 
Order,  but  two  starved  and  hunted  individuals  could  be 
brought,  by  all  the  machinery  of  persecution  at  their  com- 
mand, to  falter  an  unwilling  denial  of  the  Pope's  author- 
ity."" Clearly,  nothing  short  of  death  and  destruction 
could  silence  these  formidable  champions  of  papal  authority 
and  jurisdiction,  because  "secluded  from  the  commerce  and 
pleasures  of  the  world,  they  felt  fewer  temptations  to  sacri- 
fice their  consciences  to  the  command  of  their  sovereign ;  and 
seemed  more  eager  to  court  the  crown,  than  to  flee  from  the 
pains  of  martyrdom. '  '^*    • 

Hence  we  can  imagine  the  fury  of  the  king  and  of  Crom- 
well, when  the  reports  of  the  commissioners  reached  them. 


12.  Gasquet,  Henry  VIII  ....  Monasteries,  Vol.   I,  p.  177. 

13.  Stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  43. 

14.  LIngard,  Vol  V,  p.  18. 


60  FRANCISCANS  AND 

"Without  delay,  a  decree  was  drawn  up  providing  for  the 
arrest  of  the  Franciscans  and  the  seizure  of  their  friaries. 
"What  bitter  pangs  and  gloomy  forebodings  must  have 
preyed  on  the  spirits  of  these  men  of  God  when  the  king's 
officers  appeared  at  the  various  convents  to  carry  out  his 
orders.  Their  six  houses  were  declared  forfeited  to  the 
crown  and  were  temporarily  made  over  to  the  Augustinian 
Order.  Of  the  friars  themselves,  whom  the  officers  arrested 
as  prisoners  of  the  king,  some  were  confined  in  other  religious 
houses  of  the  kingdom,  W'hile  the  majority  were  thrown  into 
prison.  On  June  18,  1534,  a  certain  Leonard  Smith  writing 
to  Lord  Lisle  remarks  incidentally,  "No  news  but  that  two 
carts  full  of  friars  came  to  the  Tower  two  days  ago. ' '  And 
in  a  letter  which  Chapuys  addressed  to  Emperor  Charles  V 
under  date  of  August  11,  1534,  we  read:  "Of  seven  (?) 
houses  of  Observants,  five  have  already  been  emptied  of 
friars,  because  they  refused  to  swear  to  the  statutes  made 
against  the  Pope.  Those  in  the  two  others  expect  also  to  be 
expelled.  "^^  By  August  29,  1534,  fully  a  year  before  any 
other  religious  house  was  molested,  the  agents  of  Cromwell 
had  finished  with  the  Franciscans.  Far  and  wide  the  help- 
less friars  were  scattered  over  the  kingdom,  while  their  lowly 
convents,  which  as  centers  of  virtue  and  learning  enjoyed 
nation-wide  esteem,  were  now  in  the  hands  of  strangers.^® 

The  total  number  of  Franciscans  thus  turned  out  of  their 
houses  can  not  be  fixed  with  any  degree  of  certainty.  It  is 
estimated  that  two  hundred  were  expelled.  Of  these  a  num- 
ber were  lodged  with  the  Conventuals,  who  were  forced  to 
treat  them  as  prisoners.^^  * '  All  the  Observants  of  the  king- 
dom," Chapuys  writes,  "have  been  driven  from  their  mon- 

15.  stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  38. 

16.  Since  the  Franciscan  friaries  had  little  or  no  temporal  goods,  it 
was  not  greed  but  sheer  hatred  that  prompted  the  king  to  suppress  them. 

17.  It  would  be  wide  of  the  mark  to  infer  from  this  that  the  Con- 
Tentuals  were  eager  abettors  of  the  king's  lawless  measures  against  the 
Franciscans.  They  were  rather  compelled  to  treat  them  as  the  king's 
prisoners  and  perhaps  were  even  exhorted  thereto  by  the  Franciscans 
themselves  as  the  lesser  of  two  evils.  Furthermore,  it  is  safe  to  say  that 
the  liberties  which  in  time  a  number  of  the  imprisoned  friars  enjoyed  were 
to  some  extent  owing  either  to  the  intervention  of  the  Conventuals  or  to 
their  unwillingness  to  do  the  king's  full  bidding. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION      61 

asteries  for  refusing  the  oath  against  the  Holy  See,  and  have 
been  distributed  in  several  monasteries,  where  they  are 
locked  up  in  chains,  and  worse  treated  than  they  could  be  in 
prison.  "^^  It  seems,  however,  that  in  some  cases  their  con- 
finement was  less  severe,  and  that  a  number  of  them  suc- 
ceeded in  making  good  their  escape,  and  either  remained 
in  hiding  with  friends  or  crossed  over  to  Scotland  and  Bel- 
gium. Thus,  early  in  July,  FF.  Hugh  Payn  and  Thomas 
Hayfield,  both  of  the  Newark  friary,  made  an  attempt  to 
flee  to  the  continent.  Disguised  in  secular  dress,  they  got  as 
far  as  Cardiff.  Here  they  obtained  passage  on  a  ship  bound 
for  Brittany.  They  were  about  to  embark  when  the  king's 
men  discovered  their  identity  and  led  them  off  to  prison. 
Dr.  Hilsey,  who  arrived  shortly  after,  had  them  conveyed  to 
London. ' '  You  shall  perceive  more  of  their  crafty  fashion, ' ' 
he  wrote  to  Cromwell.  "In  all  places  where  they  come  they 
persuade  the  people  to  hold  to  the  bishop  of  Rome,  calling 
him  Pope  and  saying  that  they  will  die  in  his  cause  and 
never  forsake  him  while  they  live.  They  rail  at  the  books 
set  forth  cum  privilegio,  calling  them  heresies,  and  heretics 
that  set  them  forth."  He  also  accused  them  of  ridiculing 
the  Princess  Elizabeth,  by  saying  she  had  been  baptized  in 
hot  water,  which,  however,  had  not  been  hot  enough  for 
her.^» 

A  letter  written  by  Fr.  Lybert  to  James  Becky  and  dated 
October  25, 1534,  gives  us  a  glimpse  into  the  condition  of  the 
imprisoned  friars.  The  writer  declares  that  he  and  Fr. 
Abraham  are  poorly  lodged  with  the  Grey  Friars  at  Stam- 
ford. They  are  anxious  to  learn  what  their  confreres  at 
Greenwich  have  done  or  intend  to  do.  "We  hear,"  he 
writes,  "that  they  are  all  sworn,  and  have  somewhat  changed 
their  government,  at  which  we  marvel. -°  Notwithstanding, 
if  they  think  that  God  is  pleased  with  it,  their  conscience  dis- 
charged, the  world  edified,  and  any  profit  may  come  of  it, 

18.  Gasquet,  Henry  VIII  ....  Monasteries,  Vol.  I,  p.  189. 

19.  Ibidem,  pp.   180  seq. 

20.  Cromwell,  we  may  readily  suppo.se,  had  rumors  of  this  kind  pub- 
lished, in  order  to  deceive  and  bewilder  the  other  members  of  the  province. 


62  FRANCISCANS  AND 

we  desire  to  have  a  more  perfect  knowledge;  and  then  we 
shall  do  as  God  shall  inspire  us,  either  suffer  pain  still,  and 
be  enclosed,  or  else  go  at  liberty,  as  they  do."  Then  the 
troubled  friar  asks  that  a  number  of  articles  be  sent  him, 
which  he  had  forgotten  on  his  hurried  departure,  and  won- 
ders that  his  letter,  written  about  six  weeks  before,  had  till 
now  remained  unanswered.  In  conclusion,  he  requests  that 
his  present  writing  be  burnt  and  sends  greetings  to  his 
brethren  and  to  his  relatives.^^ 

More  deplorable,  of  course,  was  the  lot  of  those  Francis- 
cans who  had  been  thrown  into  prison.  Accustomed  to  the 
peace  and  quiet  of  convent  life,  they  were  now  compelled  to 
share  company  with  the  very  dregs  of  humanity  and  were 
loaded  down  with  every  misery  and  hardship  that  these 
dreadful  abodes  of  filth  and  disease  could  offer.  For  the 
time,  Henry's  anger  knew  no  bounds;  and  there  is  every 
reason  to  believe  that  neither  insults  nor  torture  were  spared 
to  force  the  friars  into  submission.  The  following  fact,  re- 
lated by  Bourchier,  Mason,  Wadding,  and  other  reliable  his- 
torians, shows  to  some  extent  to  what  frightful  sufferings 
these  men  of  God  were  subjected.  In  1537,  after  three  years 
of  hard  durance,  a  number  of  Franciscans  were  released 
from  their  dungeons.  Four  of  them,  however,  FF.  Thomas 
Packingham,  Bonaventure  Roo,  John  Tuit,  and  Richard 
Carter,  died  a  few  days  later.  "The  hardships  they  had 
undergone  in  their  confinement,"  Parkinson  explains,  "had 
sunk  them  so  low  that  they  were  not  able  to  recover. ' '--  The 
Franciscan  Martyrology  commemorates  them  on  August  9, 

The  only  one  who  ventured  to  intercede  for  the  impris- 
oned friars  was  Sir  Thomas  Wriothesley,  a  member  of  the 
Privy  Council.  Personal  contact  with  them  had  made  him 
their  friend  and  admirer.  Being  on  intimate  terms  with 
Cromwell,  he  petitioned  him  to  liberate  the  friars  and  give 
them  leave  to  quit  the  country.  Though  the  calculating 
minister  was  willing  to  get  rid  of  them  at  any  cost,  the 

21.  stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  pp.  41  seq. ;  Gasquet,  Henry  VIII 
....  Monasteries,  Vol.  I,  pp.  191   seq. 

22.  Parkinson,  Antiquities  of  the  English  Franciscans,  p.  238. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  63 

king  proved  less  iuclined  to  grant  the  request  of  Wriothesley. 
One  thing  alone  had  so  far  prevented  him  from  sating  his 
thirst  for  vengeance  by  sending  the  friars  to  the  block.  He 
knew  that  ever  since  his  infamous  dealings  in  the  case  of  the 
Holy  Maid  of  Kent,  a  strong  feeling  of  dissatisfaction  and 
indignation  had  taken  hold  of  the  people,  which  became 
especially  noticeable  when  the  Franciscans  were  suppressed 
and  imprisoned.  Even  at  court  there  w^ere  such  as  resented 
his  usurping  of  the  spiritual  supremacy  and  thought  his  pro- 
ceedings against  the  friars  too  severe.  Therefore,  when 
Cromwell  approached  him  with  Wriothesley 's  petition,  he 
found  it  safer  to  feign  mercy  and  had  a  number  of  friars 
set  at  liberty. 

Parkinson  writes  under  the  year  1537,  ' '  The  execution  of 
many  of  the  Franciscan  Observants  (in  prison  ever  since 
1534,  or  1535)  having  been  delayed  by  the  mediation  of  their 
friend  Sir  Thomas  Wriothesley,  and  not  one  of  them  coming 
into  the  king's  measures,  or  subscribing  to  his  supremacy, 
etc.,  it  was  now  proposed  to  his  majesty  (as  Sanders  writes) 
that  they  should  be  some  way  or  other  disposed  of,  lest 
others  by  their  example,  might  become  more  resolute.  And 
now,  though  the  king  seemed  inclined  to  have  them  all  cut 
off,  or  hanged  at  once,  yet  being  apprehensive  of  the  infamy 
of  such  a  fact,  because  they  were  numerous,  and  being  will- 
ing to  show  some  favor  to  the  Privy  Counsellor  Wriothesley, 
who  had  pleaded  hard  for  them,  he  spared  some  of  them, 
who  went  into  banishment,  partly  into  the  Low  Countries, 
and  others  into  Scotland. '  '-^  To  this  action  of  Henry  prob- 
ably refers  Cromwell's  entry  in  his  Rememhrances:  "Item 
to  remember  the  friars  of  Greenwich  to  have  license  to  go  to 
Ireland."" 

Not  all  Franciscans,  however,  were  set  at  liberty.  Many 
had  to  languish  in  prison  often  for  years,  until  death  put  an 
end  to  their  sufferings.  From  the  moment  they  were  shut 
up  in  the  silence  and  gloom  of  their  foul  dungeon,  nothing 

23.  Ibidem,  p.  238. 

24.  Gasquet,  Henry  ....  Monasteries,  Vol.   I,  p.   IW. 


64  FRANCISCANS  AND 

more  was  heard  of  them.  It  is  quite  probable  that  some 
were  executed  in  secret,  and  that  in  consequence  no  account 
of  their  martyrdom  has  ever  been  committed  to  writing. 
From  a  Contemporary  Accoimt  of  Bishop  Fisher  and  Sir 
Thomas  More  preserv^ed  in  the  Vatican,  we  learn  that  "an 
immense  number  of  them  all  perished  either  on  the  scaffold 
or  by  starvation  or  through  their  sufferings  in  prison."" 
Parkinson  informs  us  that  "thirty-two  of  the  same  Order 
were  removed  out  of  the  prisons  of  London,  and  being 
coupled  two  and  two  together  with  iron  chains,  were  sent 
into  divers  other  prisons  of  the  nation,  that  they  might 
perish  with  less  murmuring  and  disturbance  of  the  people ; 
for  as  the  author  of  the  Franciscan  Mart\jrologij  says,  there 
was  such  an  universal  discontent  amongst  the  king's  sub- 
jects, and  such  loud  outcries,  even  of  persons  of  quality,  on 
the  account  of  the  imprisonment  of  all  the  Observants,  that 
his  majesty  thought  fit  to  set  some  of  them  at  liberty,  and 
that  these  32  were  reserved  to  be  made  examples  of.  Besides 
these,  others  were  starved  with  hunger,  as  an  author 
writes,-®  and  others  suffocated  with  the  intolerable  stench  of 
loathsome  prisons,  or  perished  by  the  inconveniences  and 
hardships  of  their  confinement."-^  Hueber,  in  his  Meno- 
logium,  mentions,  for  September  24,  thirty-four  friars  who 
died  about  the  year  1537.  And  finally,  on  July  31,  the 
Franciscan  Martyrology  of  Arturus  commemorates  thirty- 
two  friars  "who,  imprisoned  by  Henry  VIII  for  the  Catho- 
lic faith  and  conveyed,  burdened  two  and  two  with  most 
heavy  chains,  to  different  places,  died  in  the  Lord,  after 
having  been  tortured  with  hunger  and  cold  and  subjected 
to  other  sufferings  and  hardships. ' ' 

25.  Pocock,  Records  of  the  Reformation,  Vol.  II,  pp.  553  seq. 

26.  The  author  referred  to  is  Fr.  Francis  Davenport,  who  flourished  In 
the  beginning  of  the  next  century  and  played  a  prominent  part  in  the 
founding  of  the  second  English  province. 

27.  Parkinson,  p.  238. 


CHAPTER  VI 

RAGING  OF  THE  STORM    (CONTINUED),   1536-1538 

Disaffection  among  the  people — The  Pilgrimage  of  Grace — 
Sha7'e  of  the  Franciscans  in  the  northern  rising — Re- 
viewed hostilities  against  them — Three  Franciscan  mar- 
tyrs: Ven.  Antony  Brookhy,  Ven.  Thomas  Cart,  Yen. 
Thomas  Belchiam. 

After  the  suppression  and  expulsion  of  the  Franciscans, 
a  series  of  events  in  England  conspired  to  allay  for  a  time 
at  least  the  rebellious  pride  of  Henry  VIII.  "There  was 
hardly  any  period  of  his  reign, ' '  Gasquet  writes,  ' '  when  the 
king  and  his  counsellors  were  more  harassed  than  during 
the  latter  half  of  this  year  (1535).  The  foreign  relations 
of  the  country  were  becoming  strained.  The  people  at  home 
were  restless  and  disheartened.  The  longest  memory  could 
not  recall  a  summer  more  unfavorable  to  agriculture.  The 
corn  harvest  was  well  nigh  a  complete  failure,  the  yield  be- 
ing scarcely  more  than  the  third  part  of  an  average  crop. 
It  had  rained,  so  said  the  people,  ever  since  the  execution 
of  the  Carthusians,  and  they  looked  upon  this  as  a  mark  of 
divine  anger  at  the  misdeeds  of  Henry.  "^  The  following 
January  when  it  was  learned  that  Queen  Catherine  had 
passed  away,  a  cry  of  heartfelt  sympathy  and  regret  rose 
from  the  masses ;  which  was  changed  to  one  of  triumph  and 
gratification,  however,  when,  four  months  later,  Anne 
Boleyn,  the  cause  of  the  late  disturbances,  mounted  the 
scaffold  to  pay  the  penalty  of  her  many  crimes. 

Meanwhile,  especiall}'  in  the  north  of  England,  the  sup- 
pression of  the  lesser  monasteries  was  creating  widespread 
discontent,  and  in  the  autumn  of  1536,  the  commons  rose  in 

1.  Gasquet,  Henry  VIII  ....  Monasteries,  Vol.  I,  p.  244. 

65 


66  FRANCISCANS  AND 

armed  protest  against  the  encroachments  of  the  crown  on 
their  religious  and  political  freedom.  ' '  The  suppression  of 
the  abbeys,"  says  Gasquet,  "was  felt  to  be  a  blow  to  re- 
ligion in  those  parts  no  less  than  a  hardship  to  the  poor, 
and  a  detriment  to  the  country  at  large.  The  royal  su- 
premacy was  looked  upon  as  founded  only  on  Henry 's  whim 
and  as  a  pretension  without  precedent  in  history,  while  the 
renunciation  of  papal  authority  was  held  to  be  subversive  of 
the  principle  of  unity  in  the  Christian  Church,  and  the  first 
step  towards  diversity  of  doctrine  and  practice."' 

The  insurrection,  known  as  the  Pilgrimage  of  Grace, 
broke  out  in  Lincolnshire  and  in  a  short  time  spread  over 
the  whole  of  northern  England.  In  October,  1536,  40,000 
armed  citizens  headed  by  Robert  Aske  and  reinforced  by 
about  5,000  knights  and  gentlemen,  marched  to  Doncaster, 
where  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  had  united  his  forces  with  the 
armed  tenantry  of  the  Earl  of  Shrewsbury.  Wholly  un- 
prepared to  quell  this  formidable  array  by  force  of  arms, 
Henry  resorted  to  lying  and  treachery.  At  the  suggestion 
of  Norfolk,  Robert  Aske  had  the  demands  of  the  commons 
drawn  up  in  twenty-four  articles.  These  were  sent  to  the 
king  for  approbation,  who  feigning  some  reluctance,  at  last 
made  far-reaching  concessions  and  even  offered  the  insur- 
gents a  general  pardon.  Not  suspecting  the  king's  base 
design,  Aske  prevailed  on  his  followers  to  disarm  and  re- 
turn to  their  homes.  When,  however,  the  king's  promises 
were  not  fulfilled,  the  people  became  restless  and  in  January 
rose  a  second  time.  Now  Henry  was  prepared  to  meet  them. 
What  followed  was  a  series  of  cruel  and  bloody  measures 
against  the  leaders  of  the  rebellion  and  of  renewed  hostili- 
ties against  the  religious  houses  of  the  kingdom.  "The 
collapse  of  the  movement,"  Gasquet  maintains,  "removed 
every  restraint  upon  the  autocratic  power  of  the  crown  and 
opened  the  way  for  further  seizure  of  monastic  and  church 
property. '  '^ 

2.  Ibidem,  Vol.  II,  p.  101. 

3.  Ibidem,  Vol.  II,  p.  158. 


THE  PKOTESTANT  REVOLUTION      67 

Precisely  what  share  the  Franciscans  had  in  these  north- 
ern risings  is  hard  to  determine.  That  many  of  them  were 
still  living  with  the  Conventuals  in  these  parts  and  were 
again  exerting  their  influence  for  the  spiritual  and  temporal 
welfare  of  the  people,  seems  certain  from  the  fact  that  of  the 
twenty-four  articles  drawn  up  by  the  insurgents  the  sixth 
one  read,  "To  have  the  friars  Observants  restored  to  their 
houses."*  Furthermore,  during  the  subsequent  court  pro- 
ceedings against  the  insurgents,  William  Stapleton  testified 
that  "one  Sir  Thomas  Johnson,  otherwise  called  Bonaven- 
ture,  an  Observant  friar,  who  was  sworn  .  .  .  and  as- 
signed to  the  said  (Grey  Friars')  house  of  Beverley 
.  was  very  busy  going  betwixt  .  .  .  the  wild 
people,  oft  laying  scriptures  to  maintain  their  purpose ; ' ' 
and  that  he  even  "offered  himself  to  go  into  the  quarrel  in 
harness  to  the  field  and  so  did  to  the  first  sta,y. '  '^ 

Naturally,  these  weighty  accusations,  whether  true  or 
false,  reenkindled  the  king's  hatred  of  the  friars.  Hardly 
had  the  rebellion  been  put  down  when,  on  March  17,  1537, 
he  wrote  to  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  that  "from  my  lord  of 
Durham's  declaration  and  other  evidences,  we  see  that  the 
Friars  Observants  are  disciples  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  and 
sowers  of  sedition.  You  shall  therefore  do  your  best  to 
apprehend  the  friars  as  prisoners,  without  liberty  to  speak 
to  any  man,  till  we  shall  determine  our  further  pleasure 
about  them."^  What  this  "further  pleasure  about  them" 
amounted  to,  became  clear  a  few  months  later  when  three 
Franciscans  died  a  martyr 's  death  for  their  allegiance  to  the 
Holy  See.^ 

Among  the  Franciscans  imprisoned  in  1534  was  Vener- 
able Antony  Brookby  (or  Brorbey),  a  man  of  singular  holi- 
ness and  profound  learning.  During  the  early  part  of  the 
reign  of  Henry  VIII,  he  was  engaged  as  lecturer  in  divinity 

4.  Stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  88. 

5.  Gasquet,  Henry  VIII  ....  Monasteries,  Vol.  II,  pp.  137  seq. 

6.  Stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  75. 

7.  Our  chief  source  of  information  regarding  these  three  martyrs  Is 
Bourchier,  Hist.  Eccl.  de  Martyrio  FF.  Ord.  Dili  Francisci,  pp.  11-28.  As 
to  the  historical  value  of  the  narrative,  see  supra,  p. 


68  FRANCISCANS  AND 

in  Magdalen  College,  Oxford,  where  he  had  received  the 
licentiate  in  theology  and  enjoyed  the  reputation  of  being 
a  master  of  Greek  and  Hebrew.^  He  was,  moreover,  a  force- 
ful preacher,  and  his  eloquence  together  with  his  zeal  and 
learning  made  him  a  most  formidable  opponent  of  the  king's 
encroachments  on  the  rights  of  the  Holy  See.  Hence,  in 
1534,  when  the  religious  persecution  broke  out,  Fr.  Antony 
was  lodged  with  others  of  his  Order  in  prison.  Later,  it 
seems,  he  was  released  and  placed  with  the  Conventuals  in 
London.  Here,  having  obtained  license  to  preach,  he  again 
went  about  instructing  and  confirming  the  people  in  their 
holy  faith. 

It  was  apparently  in  the  spring  of  1537  that,  during  a 
sermon  held  in  St.  Lawrence  Church,  he  boldly  denounced 
the  king  for  his  wanton  rupture  with  Rome  and  seizure  of 
the  religious  houses.  Suddenly,  he  was  interrupted  by  a 
man  in  the  audience,  who  leaped  to  his  feet  and  threatening 
him  with  the  king's  vengeance  demanded  that  he  hold  his 
peace.  It  was  one  of  Cromwell's  spies.  But  fear  had  no 
meaning  for  Fr.  Antony;  although  he  realized  what  the 
sequel  would  be,  he  quietly  continued  his  sermon.  Without 
delay,  the  spy  reported  the  affair  and  received  orders  for 
the  friar's  arrest.  Accordingly,  when  some  time  after,  Fr. 
Antt)ny  was  again  preaching  in  the  church  of  St.  Lawrence, 
the  spy  accompanied  by  royal  officers  entered  the  sacred 
edifice.  The  preacher  saw  them  and  knew  what  they  had 
come  for.  Having  finished  the  sermon,  he  fearlessly  de- 
scended from  the  pulpit  at  the  foot  of  which  the  king's  men 
were  waiting  for  him.  Gladly  he  suffered  them  to  bind  his 
hands  behind  his  back  and  to  lead  him  off  to  Newgate.  He 
rejoiced  in  the  anticipation  of  a  martyr's  crown,  when  the 
prison  gates  closed  and  he  found  himself  among  thieves, 
murderers,  assassins,  and  other  criminals.  His  cell  was  the 
darkest  and  filthiest  in  Newgate,  "in  which  the  memory  of 
man,  no  one  had  been  condemned  to  lie,  so  that  the  prisoners 
themselves  were  astonished  at  so  much   cruelty."     Here, 

8.  See  Parkinson,  Antiquities  of  the  English  Franciscans,  p.  239. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION      69 

amid  the  gibes  and  curses  of  his  fellow  prisoners,  the  valiant 
champion  prayed  to  God  for  strength  and  perseverance  in 
the  impending  struggle." 

Summoned  before  the  royal  commissioners,  Fr.  Antony 
maintained  with  unflinching  boldness  that  the  king's  as- 
sumed supremacy  was  contrary  to  the  ordination  of  Christ 
who,  as  the  Scriptures  taught,  had  built  his  Church  solely 
on  the  Rock  of  Peter.  He  declared  himself  ready  to  suffer 
even  the  most  cruel  death  rather  than  deny  that  faith  which 
for  centuries  past  had  been  the  glory  and  pride  of  England, 
and  which  was  still  a  treasure  he  cherished  above  all  earthly 
things.  Finally,  when  his  tormentors  saw  that  threats  and 
promises  availed  nothing,  they  ordered  the  rack  to  be 
brought  in.  The  friar's  face  was  radiant  with  joy  when  the 
executioners  led  him  to  the  instrument  of  torture.  Rudely 
they  thrust  him  beneath  the  wooden  framework  and  fastened 
his  wrists  and  ankles  to  the  rollers  on  both  ends.  These 
were  then  drawn  in  opposite  directions,  till  the  body  of  the 
helpless  friar  hung  suspended  in  the  rack.  Then  the  fright- 
ful torture  began.  After  every  refusal  to  admit  the  king's 
supremacy,  the  rollers  were  draAvn  with  ever  increasing 
force,  so  that  finally  every  bone  in  his  body  was  wrenched 
from  its  socket. 

During  this  inhuman  torture,  the  martyr  fixed  his  gaze 
heavenward  and  prayed.  A  deadly  pallor  came  over  his 
countenance,  convulsive  twitchings  about  the  eyes  and  lips 
told  of  his  intense  sufferings ;  there  was  danger  that  he  would 
die  on  the  rack.  For  this  reason,  at  the  command  of  the 
judge  to  desist  for  the  present,  he  was  released  from  the 
bed  of  pain  and  dragged  back  into  the  dreadful  dungeon  in 
Newgate.  Lying  helpless  on  a  heap  of  rotten  straw,  the 
valiant  friar  was  left  to  breathe  his  last  in  utter  gloom  and 
solitude.  In  consequence  of  the  cruel  racking,  he  was  un- 
able to  stir  hand  or  foot.  It  was,  moreover,  the  month  of 
July  and  owing  to  the  unbearable  summer  heat  a  burning 

9.  See  Stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  77,  on  the  authority  of  BarezzQ 
Barezzl. 


70  FRANCISCANS  AND 

fever  soon  set  in.  Since  he  could  not  even  bring  his  hand 
to  his  mouth,  he  suffered  exceedingly  from  thirst  and  hun- 
ger, and  he  would  have  died  of  starvation,  had  not  a  pious 
woman  purchased  leave  to  visit  the  prison  and  give  the  friar 
food  and  drink  through  the  iron  prison  bars. 

During  the  twenty-five  days  which  Fr.  Antony  spent  in 
this  pitiful  condition,  repeated  attempts  were  made  to  wrest 
from  him  a  denial  of  papal  supremacy.  But  in  vain ;  the 
faithful  friar  remained  true  to  the  end.  Though  his  suffer- 
ings were  great,  his  loyaltj^  was  greater.  Though,  his  body 
lay  helpless,  faint  with  sufferings,  his  noble  soul  exulted  in 
the  freedom  of  the  children  of  God  and  gloried  in  the  as- 
surance of  an  eternal  reward  awaiting  him.  Finally,  the 
jailor  of  Newgate  received  orders  from  the  king  to  dispatch 
the  friar  secretly.  Accordingly,  on  July  19,  1537,  one  of 
the  king's  men  entered  the  cell  of  Fr.  Antony,  and  tearing 
the  cord  from  the  feeble  body,  strangled  him.  Later  in  the 
day,  when  the  turnkey  made  his  usual  call,  he  saw  the  friar 
lying  with  his  face  on  the  wet  stone  pavement  of  the  cell. 
Thinking  him  asleep,  he  tried  to  rouse  him  with  a  rude  kick ; 
seeing  that  the  form  did  not  stir,  he  went  closer — the  friar 
was  dead.  The  news  of  Fr.  Antony's  death  spread  like 
wildfire  through  the  city.  And  when  it  was  noised  abroad 
that  God  was  testifying  to  the  holiness  of  the  martyr,  large 
crowds  thronged  Newgate  to  see  the  miracle.  With  min- 
gled emotions  of  joy  and  dread,  they  gazed  on  the  dazzling 
light  that  suffused  the  gloomy  prison  and  formed  a  halo 
about  the  lifeless  body.  Many  who  had  remained  untouched 
when  Fr,  Antony  preached  in  the  churches  of  London,  were 
now  at  the  sight  of  this  miracle  filled  with  compunction  for 
their  past  weakness  and  they  resolved  then  and  there  to 
cling  to  the  old  faith  at  any  cost. 

Hardly  had  Fr.  Antony  passed  to  his  eternal  reward 
when  another  Franciscan  succumbed  to  the  cruel  treatment 
of  his  jailers  in  Newgate.  Venerable  Thomas  Cort  was  of 
a  noble  and  deeply  religious  family.  Esteemed  by  his  breth- 
ren as  a  true  follower  of  St.  Francis,  he  was  known  also  for 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION      71 

his  profound  learning  and  great  eloquence.  From  the  very- 
beginning  of  the  religious  conflict  in  England,  Fr.  Thomas 
had  been  among  the  foremost  and  boldest  in  defending  the 
cause  of  justice  and  truth  .  It  seems  that  he  was  of  the  num- 
ber of  those  friars  who  on  the  intervention  of  Wriothesley 
had  obtained  leave  to  quit  the  country.  Although  there  are 
no  records  to  show  when  he  returned  to  his  native  land,  it  is 
certain  that  in  the  spring  of  1537,  he  was  in  London  pub- 
licly defending  papal  supremacy  at  the  risk  of  liberty  and 
life.  In  order  to  wipe  out  the  hateful  stain  of  excommuni- 
cation and  to  give  his  action  in  the  eyes  of  the  people  the 
semblance  of  orthodoxy,  the  shrewd  king  had  appealed  to  a 
General  Council.^"  The  Franciscans,  however,  were  not 
slow  to  detect  the  futility  of  such  an  appeal.  In  a  sermon 
held  in  the  church  of  St.  Lawrence  about  this  time,  Fr. 
Thomas  boldly  demonstrated  to  his  hearers  that  both  from 
a  theological  and  from  a  historical  standpoint,  the  Bishop 
of  Rome  was  the  supreme  head  of  the  universal  Church  of 
Christ,  and  therefore  also  of  the  Church  in  England ;  that 
King  Henry,  by  proclaiming  himself  head  of  the  English 
Church,  had  arrogated  to  himself  a  title  and  power  to  which 
he  could  have  no  right  whatever ;  and  that,  accordingly,  he 
was  to  be  regarded  as  a  heretic  and  schismatic,  as  long  as 
he  continued  in  his  opposition  to  the  Vicar  of  Christ,  Spies 
of  Cromwell  were  present  at  the  sermon ;  and,  when  Fr. 
Thomas  descended  from  the  pulpit,  they  arrested  him  in  the 
king's  name  and  threw  him  into  one  of  the  foulest  dungeons 
of  Newgate. 

Despite  the  horrors  and  hardships  of  prison  life,  Fr. 
Thomas  remained  true  to  his  convictions.  He  felt  that  his 
end  was  not  far  off,  and  he  glorified  God  in  the  loathsome 
dungeon,  which  he  hoped  soon  to  leave  for  the  mansions  of 
eternal  bliss.  At  the  time  of  his  imprisonment,  he  was  in 
poor  health,  and  the  close  confinement  in  the  damp  and 
filthy  cell  soon  brought  the  ailing  friar  to  death's  door. 
After  being  in  prison  a  few  days,  he  took  sick,  and  on  July 

10.  Ibidem,   p.   78. 


72  FRANCISCANS  AND 

27,  1537,  just  a  week  after  the  execution  of  Fr.  Antony 
Brookby,  his  soul  passed  to  heaven. 

A  miracle  similar  to  the  one  that  attended  the  death  of 
his  fellow  friar,  gave  testimony  also  to  his  heroic  sanctity. 
Fear  seized  the  bystanders  when  they  beheld  the  grim  dun- 
geon bathed  in  celestial  light.  It  was  the  second  time  within 
a  week  that  this  singular  spectacle  was  seen  in  Newgate. 
King  Henry  heard  of  it,  and,  strange  to  say,  his  better 
nature  for  a  moment  reasserted  itself.  His  guilty  conscience 
left  him  no  peace.  He  feared,  no  doubt,  that  these  wonder- 
ful happenings  were  but  a  final  warning  from  Him  whose 
sacred  laws  he  had  so  wantonly  trampled  under  foot,  and 
who  had  power  to  hurl  his  black  soul  into  the  frightful 
abyss  of  pain  and  perdition.  In  this  paroxysm  of  fear,  the 
king  gave  orders  that  the  corpse  of  the  deceased  Fr.  Thomas 
should  be  decently  buried.  Accordingly,  the  martyr  was 
laid  to  rest  in  the  cemetery  of  the  Holy  Sepulcher  near  the 
large  door  of  the  church.  In  later  years,  Margaret  Herbert, 
the  wife  of  a  glovemaker  of  Ghent,  set  a  stone  on  the  grave 
of  Fr.  Thomas ;  it  bore  the  inscription : 

Hac  tu  qui  transis  Christ i  devote  viator 
hi  precihus,  quaeso,  sis  memor  ipse  mei}'^ 

The  third  Franciscan  who  died  for  the  faith,  in  the  year 
1537,  is  Venerable  Thomas  Belehiam.  Though  only  twenty- 
eight  years  of  age,  he  was  known  as  a  bold  and  outspoken 
champion  of  papal  supremacy.  Like  Fr.  Thomas  Cort,  he 
publicly  accused  the  king  of  heresy.  To  prove  his  asser- 
tion and  to  confirm  his  fellow  friars  in  their  allegiance  to 
the  Holy  See,  he  published  a  book  that  began  with  the  words, 
"They  that  are  clothed  in  soft  garments,  are  in  the  houses 
of  kings.  "^2    In  this  work,  inspired  by  youthful  zeal  and 

11.  Christ-loving  traveler  passing  this  way. 
Remember,  I  beg  thee,  for  my  soul  to  pray. 

12,  The  book  was  entitled  Liber  Ad  Fratres  (A  Book  to  the  Brethren). 
See  Dodd,  Church  History  of  England,  Vol.  I,  p.  234.  "One  copy  of  the 
book  was  left  by  the  author  to  the  Observants  of  Greenwich.  It  passed 
through  the  hands  of  the  eminent  Franciscan  Father  Thomas  Bourchier, 
who  Intended  to  publish  )t,  and  Father  Angelus  Mason  says  it  was  always 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION      73 

enthusiasm,  he  showed  that  by  setting  aside  the  authority  of 
Rome  and  proclaiming  himself  spiritual  head  of  the  Church 
in  England,  the  king  stood  in  open  rebellion  against  the 
Vicar  of  Christ  on  earth,  and  that,  therefore,  he  ceased  to 
belong  to  the  fold  that  Christ  had  committed  to  the  care  of 
St.  Peter  and  his  successors.  Thereupon,  he  scourged  the 
lax  morals  of  the  royal  court,  calling  it  a  haunt  of  sin  and 
vice  and  declaring  that  "he  that  will  be  godly  must  depart 
the  court."  Finally,  he  upraided  the  clerg;y'  of  England  for 
their  cringing  cowardice  in  those  woful  days  when  the 
rights  of  the  Church  and  the  prerogatives  of  the  Papacy 
were  at  stake.  He  criticized  especially  the  higher  clergy  of 
whom  so  maiiy  were  sacrificing  their  God  and  their  con- 
science on  the  altar  of  pride  and  ambition,  who  regardless 
of  their  duties  as  shepherds  of  Christ 's  flock,  were  stooping 
to  the  whims  of  a  ruthless  and  rebellious  king. 

Needless  to  say,  the  appearance  of  this  book  added  fuel 
to  the  fury  of  those  against  whom  it  was  directed.  The 
youthful  defender  of  truth  and  morality  was  seized  and 
thrown  into  prison.  Here  he  was  subjected  to  every  kind 
of  torture.  But  the  resolute  friar  bore  all  with  heroic  cour- 
age and  constancy.  At  last,  when  it  became  clear  that  he 
would  never  admit  the  king's  usurped  supremacy,  he  was 
brought  back  to  prison.  Now  began  for  him  a  period  of 
untold  suffering.  It  was  his  terrible  lot  to  die,  not  by  the 
halter  and  the  knife,  but  of  disease  and  starvation. 

How  long  Fr.  Thomas  languished  in  the  gloom  and  filth 
of  his  prison  cell,  is  not  known.  Historians  say  that  he  was 
deprived  of  all  necessaries  of  life,  so  that  gradually  his 
sturdy  frame  was  reduced  to  a  mere  skeleton.  Finally,  on 
August  3,  1537,  death  came  to  his  relief.  The  martyr  passed 
to  his  reward,  repeating  the  words  of  the  Royal  Prophet: 
"In  thee,  0,  Lord,  have  I  trusted,  let  me  never  be  con- 
founded." At  the  moment  when  he  breathed  his  last,  an 
earthquake  shook  the  prison.     The  jailors  were  terrified, 

In  the  minds  of  the  friars  to  print  the  boolj ;  but  here  we  lose  sight  of  it 
entirely,  and  it  doubtless  perished,  under  the  destroying  sway  of  the 
reformers."     Stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  80. 


74  FRANCISCANS  AND 

and  when  the  king  heard  of  it,  he  trembled  and  gave  orders 
that  Fr.  Thomas  receive  a  decent  burial.  On  searching  the 
cell,  the  prison  officials  found  a  copy  of  the  book  he  had 
written.  It  was  brought  to  the  king,  who  on  reading  it  is 
said  to  have  shed  tears  and  lamented  his  utter  misery.  But 
this  seeming  repentance  was  only  a  passing  fit  of  remorse 
and  uneasiness,  such  as  frequently  came  over  him  and  em- 
bittered his  last  years.  He  soon  silenced  the  voice  of  con- 
science and  had  the  book  thrown  into  the  fire. 

It  is  evident  that  FF.  Antony  Brookby,  Thomas  Cort, 
and  Thomas  Belchiam  suffered  and  died  in  defense  of  the 
Catholic  dogma  of  papal  supremacy,  Arturus's  Marty- 
rology  and  Hueber's  Mcnologium  commemorate  them  on 
the  day  on  which  they  passed  to  their  eternal  reward.  Their 
names  also  head  the  list  of  those  261  English  martyrs  whose 
cause  of  beatification  was  opened  on  December  9,  1886, 
when  Pope  Leo  XIII  approved  the  decision  of  the  Sacred 
Congregation,  providing  that  a  Commission  be  appointed 
to  introduce  the  cause. ^^ 

13.  See  Acta  Minorum,  Vol.  VI  (1887),  p.  49. 


CHAPTER  VII 

BLESSED  THOMAS  MORE,  FRANCISCAN  TERITARY 

Early  youth — At  Oxford — Professional  studies — With  the 
Carthusians — More's  puhlic  and  private  life — The  im- 
pending storm — He  resigns  the  chancellorship — Poverty 
and  distress  at  Chelsea^ — Efforts  of  Anne  Boleyn  and 
Cromwell  to  ruin  the  ex-chancellor — Measures  of  the 
king  against  him — More  rejects  the  Acts  of  Succession 
and  Supremacij—In  the  Tower— His  loyalty  put  to 
severe  tests — Brought  to  trial — Found  guilty  of  high 
treason  and  sentenced  to  death — His  last  days  in  prison 
— Beheaded  on  Tower  Hill. 

Owing  to  the  unexpected  dispersion  of  the  Franciscans 
and  the  seizure  of  their  friaries  in  1534,  the  extent,  activity, 
and  influence  of  the  Third  Order  of  St.  Francis  in  medieval 
England  will  ever  remain  an  unwritten  chapter  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  English  Franciscans.  From  the  singular  popu- 
larity of  the  friars,  however,  and  from  their  characteristic 
zeal  for  the  welfare  of  the  people,  we  may  safely  assume 
that  during  the  three  centuries  preceding  the  Protestant 
Revolution,  the  Third  Order  was  widely  known  and  fos- 
tered. That  this  continued  down  to  the  very  eve  of  the 
religious  upheaval,  is  sufficiently  clear  from  the  fact  that, 
besides  Queen  Catherine  of  Aragon,  also  Blessed  Thomas 
More  and  his  second  wife,  Alice  Middleton,  were  Franciscan 
Tertiaries.  It  is  for  this  reason,  too,  that  the  noble  queen 
of  Henry  VIII  and  his  sainted  chancellor  have  found  a  place 
in  these  pages.^ 

1.  Authorities  for  the  statement  that  Blessed  Thomas  More  was  a 
Franciscan  Tertiary  are  chiefly:  Llvarlus  Ollger,  Third  Order  of  St. 
Francis  in  The  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  Vol.  XIV.  p.  642  ;  Helmbucher,  Die 
Orden  und  Congregation  der  KathoUschen  Kirche,  Vol.  II,  p.  492;   Holz- 

75 


76 


FRANCISCANS  AND 


Bl.  Thomas  More 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION      77 

Blessed  Thomas  More  was  born  February  7,  1478,  in 
Milk  Street,  Cheapside,  London.  His  pious  and  accom- 
plished father.  Sir  John  More,  Knight,  served  as  barrister 
and  later  as  judge  in  the  Court  of  the  King's  Bench.  His 
mother,  Agnes  Graunger,  died  a  few  years  after  the  birth 
of  Thomas.  St.  Antony's  School  in  Threadneedle  Street, 
under  the  direction  of  Nicholas  Holt,  was  deemed  the  best 
of  its  kind  in  London,  Here  Thomas  received  his  elementary 
training.  Unusuall}^  endowed  in  heart  and  mind,  he  made 
rapid  progress  at  school,  and  at  the  age  of  thirteen  he  was 
graduated  with  high  honors.  Thinking  the  boy  too  young 
for  university  life,  his  prudent  father  placed  him  as  page 
in  the  service  of  Cardinal  Morton,  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury and  Lord  Chancellor  of  England.  This  saintly  and 
learned  prelate  soon  detected  the  superior  talents  of  the 
quickwitted  and  winsome  lad.  To  the  nobles,  who  frequent- 
ly came  to  dine  with  him,  the  chancellor  was  wont  to  re- 
mark, ' '  This  child  here  waiting  at  the  table,  whosoever  shall 
live  to  see  it,  will  prove  a  marvelous  man."^  At  the  same 
time,  the  sanctity  and  learning  of  the  Cardinal  made  a  last- 
ing impression  on  the  sensitive  heart  of  Thomas ;  and  it  was 
in  the  service  of  this  distinguished  prelate,  no  doubt,  that 
the  future  martyr  first  imbibed  those  lofty  ideals  of  per- 
sonal holiness  and  that  unflinching  zeal  for  truth  and  jus- 
tice which  made  him  so  fearless  an  opponent  of  schism  and 
heresy. 

apfel,  Geschichte  des  Franziskanerordens,  p.  670;  Catalogus  Hagiographicus 
Seraphicw  Familiw  in  Acta  Minorum  (an.  xxviii,  p.  203  seq.),  an  official 
list  of  all  the  Saints,  Blessed,  and  Venerable  of  the  three  Orders  of  St. 
Francis.  It  was  published  with  ecclesiastical  approbation  in  1909,  on  the 
occasion  of  the  seventh  centenary  of  the  founding  of  the  Franciscan  Order. 
On  page  216,  Blessed  Thomas  More  is  commemorated  expressly  as  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Third  Order  of  St.  Francis,  a  fact  which  we  think  settles  the 
question.  Despite  these  evidences.  Father  Cuthbert  writes  in  The  Catholic 
Encyclopedia,  Vol.  XIV,  p.  645,  "Blsssed  Thomas  More  is  frequently 
spoken  of  as  a  tertiary  of  St.  Francis,  but  there  seems  to  be  no  historical 
evidence  to  support  this  statement."  It  is  not  known  when  he  Joined  the 
Third  Order ;  perhaps  it  was  at  the  time  when  he  was  thinking  of  joining 
the  first  Order  of  St.  Francis. 

2.  William  Roper,  Life  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  Knt.,  p.  5.  The  author  of 
this  work  was  the  son-in-law  of  the  Blessed  martyr,  having  married  the 
latter's  favorite  daughter  Margaret.  From  her  he  learned  many  details 
for  his  Life,  which  is,  therefore,  of  special  interest  and  value  to  the 
historian. 


78  FRANCISCANS  AND 

In  1492,  the  Cardinal  prevailed  on  Sir  John  More  to  let 
the  boy  pursue  a  higher  course  of  studies  at  Oxford.  The 
Renaissance  had  already  found  its  way  to  the  university, 
and  Thomas  conceived  a  strong  predilection  for  the  ancient 
classics.  ' '  For  the  short  time  of  his  abode, ' '  Harpsfield  re- 
lates, "being  not  fully  two  years,  and  for  his  age,  he  won- 
derfully profited  in  the  Latin  and  Greek  tongues ;  where  if 
he  had  settled  and  fixed  himself,  and  run  his  full  race  in 
the  study  of  the  liberal  sciences  and  divinity,  I  trow  he 
would  have  been  the  singular  and  only  spectacle  of  this 
our  time  of  learning. '  '^  Not  only  was  his  college  life  * '  free 
from  all  excesses  of  play  and  riot,"  but  then  already  he 
began  those  practices  of  prayer  and  mortification  that 
marked  his  later  career.  "His  father  ,  .  .  wished  that 
he  should  learn  from  his  earliest  years  to  be  frugal  and 
sober,  and  to  love  nothing  but  his  studies  and  literature. 
For  this  reason  he  gave  him  the  bare  necessaries,  and  would 
not  allow  him  a  farthing  to  spend  freely.  This  he  carried 
out  so  strictly  that  he  had  not  money  to  mend  his  worn-out 
shoes,  without  asking  it  from  his  father.  More  used  often 
to  relate  this  conduct  of  his  father,  and  greatly  extolled  it. 
'It  was  thus'  (he  would  say)  'that  I  indulged  in  no  vice  or 
pleasure,  and  spent  my  time  in  no  vain  or  hurtful  amuse- 
ments ;  I  did  not  know  what  luxury  meant,  and  never  learnt 
to  use  money  badly ;  in  a  word.  I  loved  and  thought  of  noth- 
ing but  my  studies. '  '  '* 

After  spending  about  two  years  at  Canterbury  College, 
Oxford,  Thomas  answered  his  father's  summons  and  re- 
paired to  London  in  order  to  prepare  himself  for  the  bar. 
Although  the  study  of  law  was  not  to  his  liking,  he  applied 
himself  very  conscientiously  and  made  such  rapid  progress 
that  after  an  unusually  short  period  of  study,  he  was  ap- 
pointed for  three  successive  years  lecturer  on  law  at  Furni- 

3.  See  Bridgett,  Rev.  T.  E.,  Life  and  Writings  of  Blessed  Thomas 
More,  p.  9.  Nicholas  Harpsfield  wrote  in  the  time  of  Queen  Mary,  William 
Roper  supplying  him  with  material. 

4.  Stapleton,  quoted  by  Bridgett,  p.  10.  Stapleton's  Tres  Thomce  con- 
tains "by  far  the  best  Life  of  More ;  it  was  published  In  1588." 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION      79 

val's  Inn.     His  spare  time,  however,  he  devoted  to  his  be- 
loved classics  and  to  the  Latin  and  Greek  Fathers  of  the 
Church.     We  may  add  here  that,  although  he  ever  after 
proved  an  ardent  advocate  of  the  classic  revival  so  widely 
fostered  in  his  day,  he  never  sacrificed  to  pagan  ideals  his 
religious  convictions,  but  remained  to  the  end  of  his  life  a 
man  of  strict  morals  and  a  dutiful  child  of  the  Cathofic 
Church.     About  this  time  he  was  called  upon  to  deliver  a 
series  of  historical  lectures  on  St.  Augustine's  De  Civitate 
Dei,  in  the  church  of  St.  Lawrence.    Many  learned  men  at- 
tended the  lectures,  so  that  the  learning  and  eloquence  of 
the  youthful  jurist  soon  became  the  topic  of  public  comment. 
Meanwhile  the  time  arrived  for  Thomas  to  choose  a  state 
of  life.     "When  he  was  about  eighteen  or  twenty  years 
old,"  his  son-in-law  tells  us,  "finding  his  body,  by  reason 
of  his  age,  most  rebellious,  he  sought  diligently  to  tame  his 
unbridled  concupiscence  by  wonderful  works  of  mortifica- 
tion.    He  used  oftentimes  to  wear  a  sharp  shirt  next  his 
skin,  which  he  never  left  off  wholly,— no,  not  even  when  he 
was  Lord  Chancellor  of  England   ...    He  used  also  much 
fasting  and  watching,  lying  often  either  upon  the  bare 
ground  or  upon  some  bench,  or  laying  some  log  under  his 
head,  allotting  himself  but  four  or  five  hours  in  a  night 
at  the  most  for  his  sleep.    ...    He  lived  for  four  years 
amongst  the  Carthusians,  dwelling  near  the  Charterhouse, 
frequenting  daily  their  spiritual  exercises,  but  without  any 
vow.    He  had  an  earnest  desire  also  to  be  a  Franciscan  friar, 
that  he  might  serve  God  in  a  state  of  perfection."^    Eras- 
mus, his  intimate  friend  and  confident,  likewise  informs  us 
that  Thomas  "applied  his  whole  mind  to  exercises  of  piety, 
looking  to  and  pondering  on  the  priesthood  in  vigils,  fasts, 
and  prayers,  and  similar  austerities."*'     At  last,  however, 
on  the  advice  of  his  father  confessor,  he  abandoned  the  idea 

5.  Cresacre  More,  quoted  by  Briilgett,  p.  31.  See  also  Baumstark : 
Thomas  Morus,  p.  22  ;  Parkinson  :  Antiquities  of  the  English  Franciscans, 
p.  211  ;  Du  Boys  :  Catherine  D'Aragon,  p.  401  ;  G.  Roger  Huflleston  :  Sir 
Thomas  More  in  The  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  Vol.  XIV,  p.  690  ;  Camni  :  Lities 
of  the  English  Martyrs,  Vol.  I,  p.  129. 

G.  Bridgett,  p.  23. 


80  FRANCISCANS  AND 

of  embracing  the  religious  state  and  turned  his  attention  to 
public  affairs. 

In  1501,  More  was  called  to  the  bar,  and  three  years  later, 
he  was  elected  a  member  of  parliament.  About  this  time, 
an  event  occurred  that  foreshadowed  the  future  champion 
of  truth  and  justice.  King  Henry  VII  had  a  bill  intro- 
duced demanding  of  the  people  the  enormous  sum  of  113,000 
pounds  sterling  as  a  dowry  for  Princess  Margaret  who  was 
betrothed  to  James  IV  of  Scotland.  Regarding  the  appro- 
priation as  unjust  and  unreasonable,  the  youthful  parlia- 
mentarian publicly  opposed  it  and  effected  that  the  house 
voted  the  much  smaller  sum  of  30,000  pounds.  Unable  to 
mulct  the  "beardless  boy,"  who  as  yet  possessed  no  inde- 
pendent state,  the  enraged  king  vented  his  anger  on  the 
elder  More,  whom,  by  devising  "a  causeless  quarrel,"  he 
fined  100  pounds  sterling  and  cast  into  the  Tower  till  the 
sum  was  paid.  Thomas  grieved  to  see  his  father  suffer  on 
his  account.  But  he  was  convinced  of  having  done  his  duty, 
insomuch  that,  when  Bishop  Fox  advised  him  to  offer  an 
apology  to  the  king,  he  refused  to  do  so,  and  he  would  prob- 
ably have  gone  over  sea  had  not  the  king  died  soon  after.'' 

The  accession  of  Henry  VIII  in  1509,  augured  well  for 
the  future  welfare  of  the  kingdom.  He  was  already  ac- 
quainted with  Thomas  More,  having  met  him  about  ten 
years  before  in  company  with  Erasmus  of  Rotterdam  and 
received  a  poem  from  him.  Since  then,  Henry  had  heard 
much  of  the  promising  barrister,  and  he  cherished  a  high 
esteem  for  his  virtue  and  learning.  Accordingly,  he  sum- 
moned him  to  court  and  assured  him  of  his  royal  favor  and 
friendship.  In  1510,  More  was  appointed  Under  Sheriff 
of  London.  As  Master  of  Requests  he  was  almost  con- 
stantly at  court,  and  the  youthful  king,  not  only  consulted 
him  on  political  matters,  but  especially  delighted  in  con- 
versing with  him  on  scientific  questions.  "Because  he  was 
of  a  pleasant  disposition,  it  pleased  the  king  and  queen, 
after  the  council  had  supped,  at  the  time  of  their  supper,  for 

7.  Roper,  p.  8. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION      81 

their  pleasure  commonly  to  call  for  him  to  be  merry  with 
them. ' '« 

In  spite  of  all  these  royal  blandishments,  More  preserved 
his  independent  character.  In  1517,  he  had  to  defend  the 
Pope's  cause  against  the  English  realm  regarding  the  for- 
feiture of  a  papal  ship.  He  argued  so  well  that  the  star 
chamber  decided  in  favor  of  the  Pope.  Henry  gladly  re- 
turned the  ship,  and,  far  from  being  displeased  with  More, 
sought  only  to  win  his  valuable  service  for  himself.  As 
royal  speaker.  More  had  frequently  to  make  the  Latin  ad- 
dress; thus  at  the  famous  meeting  of  Henry  VIII  with 
Francis  I  of  France  in  the  Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold,  and 
again  two  years  later,  at  the  solemn  entry  of  Emperor 
Charles  V  and  Henry  VIII  in  London. 

Though  More  enjoyed  the  esteem  and  confidence  of  Car- 
dinal Wolsey  and  in  turn  had  great  respect  for  the  Car- 
dinal 's  eminent  qualities,  it  happened  that  on  one  occasion 
he  found  it  his  duty  publicly  to  oppose  him.  Wolsey  was 
peeved  and  exclaimed,  "Are  you  not  ashamed,  Mr,  More, 
being  the  last  in  place  and  dignity  to  dissent  from  so  many 
noble  and  prudent  men  ?  You  show  yourself  a  foolish  coun- 
cillor." More  calmly  replied,  "Thanks  be  to  God  that  his 
royal  Highness  has  but  one  fool  in  his  Council."^  On 
another  occasion,  the  Cardinal,  displeased  with  More's 
policy,  said,  "Would  to  God  you  had  been  at  Rome,  Master 
More,  when  I  made  you  Speaker."  "Your  grace  not  of- 
fended," replied  More,  "so  would  I  too,  my  Lord."''' 

In  1518,  he  was  appointed  Privy  Councillor  and  Sub- 
treasurer  of  the  Exchequer.  Three  years  later,  the  king 
created  him  a  knight.  About  this  time,  the  heretical  teach- 
ing of  Martin  Luther  was  causing  much  comment  in  Eng- 
land. More  was  foremost  in  denouncing  the  heresiarch  and 
assisted  the  king  in  writing  his  famous  Assertio  Septem 
Sacramentorum.  In  1525,  he  became  chancellor  of  the 
Duchy  of  Lancaster.  Repeatedly,  since  his  elevation  to  the 
throne,  Henry  VIII  employed  him  on  important  foreign 

8.  Ibidem,  p.  11.  9.  Camm,  p.  142.  10.  Roper,  p.  20. 


82  FRANCISCANS  AND 

embassies.  Finally,  in  1529,  he  reached  the  height  of  his 
political  distinction.  During  his  absence  at  Cambray  as 
English  ambassador.  Cardinal  Wolsey  had  fallen  into  royal 
displeasure,  Thomas  More  had  just  returned  to  England, 
when  the  king  summoned  him  to  court  and  handed  him  the 
official  seal  of  the  Lord  Chancellor  of  the  realm. 

Throughout  his  public  career,  both  as  statesman  and  as 
writer,  More's  attitude  toward  the  Church  and  her  institu- 
tions was  one  of  ready  obedience  and  unswerving  loyalty. 
Indeed,  he  lamented  the  grave  abuses  in  the  Church  and 
joined  his  life-long  friend  Erasmus  of  Rotterdam  in  the 
general  cry  for  reform;  never,  however,  did  he  approve, 
much  less  share,  his  friend's  cjTiical  and  rebellious  spirit. 
Biased  historians  have  sought  to  deduct  More's  religious 
views  from  his  celebrated  Utopia.  That  this  satire  is  any- 
thing but  an  efflux  of  Luther's  heretical  teaching,  is  evi- 
dent already  from  the  fact  that  it  was  written  in  Latin  be- 
fore the  German  ' '  reformer ' '  raised  the  standard  of  revolt 
against  the  Church.  The  author  ''certainly  had  no  wish," 
Bridgett  remarks,  "that  it  should  be  read  by  the  people 
of  England  in  the  days  of  Henry  VIII.""  Furthermore, 
we  know  how  readily  the  learned  and  well-minded  states- 
man would  have  burned  the  book  had  he  foreseen  that  the 
enemies  of  the  Church  he  loved  and  revered  would  employ 
it  as  a  cudgel  against  her.  In  1523,  he  wrote  a  spirited  re- 
ply to  Luther  and  constantly  urged  his  friend  Erasmus  to 
exert  his  learning  and  influence  in  the  same  direction. 

It  has  been  stated  that  Thomas  More  refrained  from 
entering  a  religious  order,  because  the  corruption  then  sup- 
posed to  prevail  in  the  monasteries  and  friaries  of  England, 
filled  him  with  disgust.  In  reply  to  this  charge,  Hutton,  a 
Protestant  historian  writes:  "It  is  absurd  to  assert  that 
More  was  disgusted  with  monastic  corruption — ^that  he 
'loathed  monks  as  a  disgrace  to  the  Church.'  He  was 
throughout  his  life  a  warm  friend  of  the  religious  orders, 
and  a  devoted  admirer  of  the  monastic  ideal.    He  condemned 

11.  Bridgett,  p.   101. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION      83 

the  vices  of  individuals ;  he  said,  as  his  great-grandson  says, 
'that  at  that  time  religious  men  in  England  had  somewhat 
degenerated  from  their  ancient  strictness  and  fervour  of 
spirit ; '  but  there  is  not  the  slightest  sign  that  his  decision 
to  decline  the  monastic  life  was  due  in  the  smallest  degree 
to  a  distrust  of  the  system  or  a  distaste  for  the  theology  of 
the  Church.  "^2  jjow  highly  Thomas  More  esteemed  the 
religious  orders  became  clear  in  1529'  when  he  took  Fish 
to  task  and  by  his  Supplication  of  Souls  in  Purgatory 
sought  to  offset  the  evil  influence  of  the  latter 's  Supplica- 
tion of  Beggars,  a  scurrilous  and  slanderous  diatribe  on  the 
life  and  habits  of  religious.  We  know,  too,  how,  in  1533, 
he  published  his  celebrated  Apology  in  which  he  refuted  the 
accusations  made  by  Saint-German  against  the  clergy  in 
general  and  the  religious  in  particular.^^ 

The  domestic  and  private  life  of  Blessed  Thomas  More 
has  never  failed  to  win  the  applause  and  admiration  of  his 
biographers.  In  1505,  he  married  Jane  Colt,  the  eldest 
daughter  of  a  country  gentleman  of  Essex.  But  the  happy 
union  was  not  to  last  long.  In  1511,  his  wife  died  leaving 
him  with  four  small  children,  Margaret,  Elizabeth,  Cecily, 
and  John.  From  an  epitaph  which  he  wrote  twenty  years 
later,  we  learn  how  fondly  he  cherished  her  memory.  He 
had  to  provide  for  his  children,  however,  and  for  this  rea- 
son married  Alice  Middleton,  a  widow.  Like  himself  she 
also  was  a  member  of  the  Third  Order  of  St.  Francis  and 
proved  a  kind  mother  and  a  dutiful,  discreet  housewife.^* 
After  living  twelve  years  in  Crosby  Place,  the  More  family 
moved  to  their  new  home  at  Chelsea,  a  village  on  the  out- 

12.  See  BremonJ.  .Sir  Thomas  More,  tr.  by  Harold  Child,  p.  17. 

13.  See  Dodd  :  Church  History  of  England,  Vol.  I,  p.  304;  Gasquet : 
The  Eve  of  the  Reformation,  chap.  v. 

14.  Bridgett  (pp.  116  seq.)  defends  the  character  of  Alice  Middleton 
against  such  as  declare  that  by  her  sharp  tongue  and  shrewish  temper  she 
proved  a  termagant  and  greatly  embittered  the  domestic  life  of  More.  "We 
have  now  seen,"  he  concludes  (p.  120),  "all  the  evil  that  can  be  alleged 
against  this  lady,  and  it  certainly  does  not  justify  our  classing  Blessed 
More  amongst  the  ill-matched  great  men.  To  say  that  when  his  time  of 
Buffering  came  she  did  not  rise  to  the  height  of  his  soul,  is  merely  to  class 
her  with  nearly  all  her  contemporaries,  including  almost  every  abbess, 
abbot  and  bishop  in  the  country." 


84  FRANCISCANS  AND 

skirts  of  London,  Their  spacious  residence  so  famous  in 
history  stood  in  a  beautiful  garden  that  bordered  on  the 
Thames.  Here  More  would  resort  when  free  from  State 
duties  to  find  peace  and  comfort  in  the  company  of  his 
loved  ones.  He  took  special  interest  and  delight  in  the 
education  of  his  children,  for  whom  he  engaged  able  and 
reliable  tutors.  Even  when  not  at  home,  he  superintended 
their  studies.  Once  he  wrote  to  Margaret,  his  favorite 
daughter : 

I  beg  you,  Margaret,  tell  me  about  the  progress  you  are  making 
in  your  studies.  For,  I  assure  you  that,  rather  than  allow  my  chil- 
dren to  be  idle  and  slothful,  I  would  make  a  sacrifice  of  wealth, 
and  bid  adieu  to  other  cares  and  business,  to  attend  to  my  chil- 
dren and  family,  amongst  whom  none  is  more  dear  to  me  than 
yourself,  my  beloved  daughter. 

In  a  letter  to  William  Gunnell  their  tutor  he  says  that  his 
children  are  "to  put  virtue  in  the  first  place,  learning  in  the 
second;  and  in  their  studies  to  esteem  most  whatever  may 
teach  them  piety  towards  God,  charity  to  all,  and  modesty 
and  Christian  humility  in  themselves.  "^^ 

Erasmus,  a  frequent  visitor  at  the  Chelsea  home,  says 
that  it  was  a  school  of  Christianity,  where  piety  and  virtue 
were  in  full  bloom.  Daily  the  household  would  gather  for 
evening  devotion.  All  had  to  attend  Mass  on  Sundays  and 
holy  days,  and  on  the  vigils  of  feasts,  like  Christmas  and 
Easter,  they  had  to  be  present  at  the  midnight  chanting  of 
the  office.  At  table,  one  of  the  girls  read  a  passage  from 
Holy  Scripture  concluded  as  is  done  in  convents  with :  Tu 
autem,  Domine,  miserere  nobis.  Then  a  commentary  from 
one  of  the  Holy  Fathers  would  be  read  or,  if  some  learned 
man  happened  to  be  there,  a  discussion  was  held  on  the  text, 
till  finally  More  himself  would  change  the  topic  by  some  well 
chosen  jest  or  story. 

Conformably  with  the  Rule  of  the  Third  Order,  More  was 
greatly  devoted  to  the  poor  and  sick.  ' '  He  used  himself  to  go 
through  the  back  lanes,  and  inquire  into  the  state  of  poor 
15.  See  Brldgett,  pp.  135.  129. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION      85 

families ;  and  he  would  relieve  their  distress,  not  by  scatter- 
ing a  few  small  coins  as  is  the  general  custom,  but  when  he 
ascertained  a  real  need,  by  two,  three  or  four  gold  pieces. 
When  his  official  position  and  duties  prevented  this  personal 
attention,  he  would  send  some  of  his  family  to  dispense  his 
alms,  especially  to  the  sick  and  the  aged.  ...  He  very 
often  invited  to  his  table  his  poorer  neighbors,  receiving  them 
(not  condescendingly)  but  familiarly  and  joyously;  he 
rarely  invited  the  rich,  and  scarcely  ever  the  nobility.  In 
his  parish  of  Chelsea  he  hired  a  house,  in  which  he  gathered 
many  infirm,  poor  and  old  people,  and  maintained  them  at 
his  own  expense.  ...  He  even  went  so  far  as  to  receive 
into  his  family  and  maintain  a  poor  gentlewoman,  a  widow 
named  Paula,  who  had  expended  all  she  had  in  an  unsuccess- 
ful lawsuit.  To  widows  and  orphans,  when  he  practiced 
at  the  bar,  he  even  gave  his  services  gratuitously."^^ 

We  have  seen  how  as  student  at  Oxford  he  practiced 
prayer  and  penance.  That  he  continued  these  pious  prac- 
tices in  later  life,  goes  without  saying.  Next  to  his  library, 
was  a  little  chapel,  where  he  spent  many  an  hour  in  close 
communion  with  God.  "He  used  to  rise  at  two  o'clock  in 
the  morning,"  Stapleton  informs  us,  "and  until  seven  to 
give  himself  to  study  and  devotion.  Every  day  before  any 
other  business — his  very  early  studies  alone  excepted — he 
used  to  hear  Mass.  This  duty  he  so  strictly  observed,  that 
when  summoned  once  by  the  king  at  a  time  when  he  was 
assisting  at  Mass,  and  sent  for  a  second  and  third  time,  he 
would  not  go  until  the  whole  I\rass  was  ended ;  and  to  those 
who  called  him  and  urged  him  to  go  at  once  to  the  king  and 
leave  the  Mass,  he  replied  that  he  was  paying  his  court  to  a 
greater  and  better  Lord,  and  must  first  perform  that  duty. 
Henry  was  then  pious  and  God-fearing,  and  did  not  take  in 
bad  part  this  piety  of  More. 

' '  He  used  daily  to  recite  morning  and  evening  prayers, 
to  which  he  would  add  the  seven  penitential  psalms  and  the 
litanies.     He  would  often  add  to  these  the  gradual  psalms 

16.  stapleton,  quoted  by  Bridgett,  p.  143. 


86  FRANCISCANS  AND 

and  the  psalm  Beati  Immaculati.  He  also  had  a  collection 
of  private  prayers,  some  in  Latin,  some  in  English,  as  may 
be  seen  in  his  English  works.  He  had  made  up  also,  imitat- 
ing in  this  St.  Jerome  and  others,  a  small  psaltery  consisting 
of  selected  psalms,  which  he  often  used.  He  would  also  make 
pilgrimages  sometimes  seven  miles  distant,  on  foot,  which 
even  common  people  scarcely  do  in  England.  "^^  Before 
entering  on  a  new  office,  or  undertaking  a  difficult  business, 
he  received  Holy  Communion.  On  one  occasion,  the  Duke 
of  Norfolk  found  him  in  church  among  the  singers,  clothed 
in  a  surplice.  When  the  nobleman  objected  that  the  king 
would  be  displeased  with  such  an  act,  the  chancellor  replied, 
' '  Nay,  your  grace  may  not  think  that  the  king,  your  master 
and  mine,  will  with  me  for  serving  of  God  his  master,  be 
offended,  or  thereby  account  his  office  dishonored.  "^^  On 
another  occasion,  the  chancellor  was  at  table  with  his  family. 
When  he  removed  his  official  gown,  Anne  Cresacre,  his 
daughter-in-law,  noticed  the  hair-shirt  he  was  wearing  and 
began  to  laugh.  Later  when  Margaret  told  him  of  it,  he  felt 
very  sorry,  since  he  wished  no  one  but  her  to  know  of  it.^® 
After  his  martyrdom,  in  1535,  his  confessor  wrote  of  him, 
' '  This  Thomas  More  was  my  ghostly  child ;  in  his  confession 
(he  used)  to  be  so  pure,  so  clean.  ...  I  never  heard 
many  such.  .  .  .  He  was  devout  in  his  divine  service, 
and.     .     .     .     wore  a  great  hair  (shirt)  next  his  skin. "^^ 

It  was  with  a  heavy  heart  that  Sir  Thomas  More  yielded 
to  the  will  of  his  monarch  and,  on  October  25,  1529,  took 
the  required  oath  of  office.  He  realized  that  Henry  was  no 
longer  the  high-minded  and  God-fearing  prince  of  former 
years,  and  that  he  had  conferred  the  chancellorship  on  him, 
in  order  to  gain  his  support  in  the  divorce  from  his  lawful 
queen.  In  the  fall  of  Cardinal  Wolsey,  More  saw  clearly 
what  his  own  lot  would  be,  when  once  the  king's  "secret 
affair"  should  involve  the  divine  rights  of  the  Papacy. 

17.  Stapleton,  quoted  by  Bridgett,  p.  61  seq. 

18.  Roper,  p.  51. 

19.  Ibidem,  p.  48. 

20.  See  Bremond,  p.  75. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  87 

About  a  year  before,  while  walking  with  William  Roper 
along  the  Thames  at  Chelsea,  he  suddenly  turned  to  his  son- 
in-law  and  said,  ' '  Now  would  to  our  Lord,  son  Roper,  upon 
condition  that  three  things  were  well  established  in  Christen- 
dom, I  were  put  in  a  sack  and  here  presently  cast  into  the 
Thames." 

"What  great  thmgs  be  those,  sir,"  inquired  the  other, 
"that  should  move  you  so  to  wish?" 

' '  Wouldst  thou  know,  son  Roper,  what  they  be  ? " 
"Yea,  marry,  with  a  good  will,  sir,  if  it  please  you." 
"In  faith,  son,"  replied  More,  "they  be  these;  the  first 
is,  that  whereas  the  most  part  of  Christian  princes  be  at 
mortal  war,  they  were  all  at  universal  peace.  The  second, 
that  where  the  Church  of  God  is  at  this  present  sore  afflicted 
with  many  errors  and  heresies,  it  were  well  settled  in  perfect 
uniformity  of  religion.  The  third,  that  where  the  matter 
of  the  king's  marriage  is  now  come  in  question,  it  were  to 
the  glory  of  God  and  quietness  of  all  parties  brought  to  a 
good  conclusion.  "^^  Evidently,  he  foresaw  what  a  terrible 
calamity  the  last-mentioned  affair  would  bring  upon 
England. 

On  February  11,  1531,  the  conflict  began.  Parliament 
wholly  subservient  to  the  king  approved  a  royal  proclama- 
tion by  which  the  clergy  were  to  acknowledge  Henry  "pro- 
tector and  only  supreme  head  of  the  church  and  clergy  of 
England,  so  far  as  the  law  of  Christ  allows. ' '  Although  this 
new  title  was  not  clearly  adverse  to  papal  supremacy,  it  was 
at  least  ill-omened  and  dangerous.  "There  is  no  one," 
Chapuys  wrote  a  few  days  later,  "that  does  not  blame  this 
usurpation,  except  those  who  have  promoted  it.  The  chan- 
cellor is  so  mortified  at  it  that  he  is  anxious  above  all  things 
to  resign  his  office. '  '^^  Pressed  by  the  king  to  reconsider  his 
resignation,  More  remained  in  office  and  again  set  himself  to 
studying  the  question  of  papal  supremacy.  Finding  he 
could  not  reconcile  his  conscience  with  the  king's  demand,  he 
pursued  a  policy  of  silence,  refusing  to  have  anything  to  do 

21.  Roper,  p.  25.  22.  Brldgett,  p.  234. 


88  FRANCISCANS  AND 

with  the  matter.     Henry  was  satisfied,  hoping  in  time  to  win 
over  the  chancellor. 

Thus  a  year  passed  by,  when  on  May  13,  the  king  de- 
manded that  parliament  suspend  the  payment  of  the  Annates 
to  the  Pope  and  relax  the  English  laws  against  heresy. 
Needless  to  say,  More  again  used  all  his  eloquence  and  influ- 
ence to  crush  the  bills.  Though  the  king  tried  to  conceal  his 
anger,  the  chancellor  felt  that  the  crisis  had  come.  He 
would  need  much  time  now  for  prayer  and  penance,  and 
therefore  he  again,  on  May  16,  requested  the  king  to  relieve 
him  of  his  office.  This  time  Henry  accepted  his  resignation, 
thanking  him  publicly  for  his  long  and  faithful  service. 
Indeed,  by  his  justice,  integrity,  prudence,  and  learning,  the 
noble  statesman  had  gained  the  esteem  of  entire  Europe. 
On  May  22,  Chapuys  wrote :  ' '  The  chancellor  has  resigned, 
seeing  that  affairs  were  going  on  badly  and  likely  to  be 
worse,  and  that  if  he  retained  his  office  he  would  be  obliged 
to  act  against  his  conscience,  or  incur  the  king's  displeasure, 
as  he  had  already  begun  to  do,  for  refusing  to  take  his  part 
against  the  clergy.  His  excuse  was  that  his  salary  was  too 
small,  and  that  he  was  not  equal  to  the  work.  Everyone  is 
concerned,  for  there  never  was  a  better  man  in  the  office."^' 
Though  sincerely  devoted  to  his  king  and  country,  Blessed 
Thomas  More  never  lost  sight  of  God  and  heaven.  In  fact, 
he  was  true  to  his  king,  because  he  was  true  to  God,  and  only 
when  Henry  succumbed  to  his  lower  passions,  did  his  noble 
and  saintly  chancellor  oppose  his  lawless  policy  and  fear- 
lessly unfurl  the  standard  of  truth  and  justice.  Shortly 
after  his  resignation,  Sir  Thomas  Cromwell  came  to  him  at 
Chelsea  with  a  message  from  the  king.  Having  read  the 
message,  More  said, ' '  Master  Cromwell,  j-ou  are  now  entered 
into  the  service  of  a  most  noble,  wise,  and  liberal  prince ;  if 
you  will  follow  my  poor  advice,  you  shall,  in  your  counsel- 
giving  to  his  grace,  ever  tell  him  what  he  ought  to  do,  but 
never  what  he  is  able  to  do.  So  shall  you  show  yourself  a 
true  faithful  servant,  and  a  right  wise  counsellor.    For  if  a 

23.  Ibidem,  p.  240. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  89 

lion  knew  his  own  strength,  hard  were  it  for  any  man  to  rule 
him. '  '-*  Cromwell 's  subsequent  career  showed  how  utterly 
he  ignored  this  wholesome  advice. 

More's  resignation  meant  poverty  and  distress  for  him- 
self and  his  family.  Deprived  of  his  professional  income, 
he  was  forced  to  reduce  his  extensive  household.  Having 
found  suitable  places  for  his  servants  and  having  disposed 
of  all  luxuries  and  superfluities,  he  told  his  dear  ones  of  his 
plans,  cheerfully  adding  that,  if  later  they  should  have  noth- 
ing to  live  on,  "then  may  we  yet,  with  bags  and  wallets,  go 
a-begging  together.  ...  at  every  man's  door  to  sing 
Salve  Regina,  and  so  still  keep  company  and  be  merry  to- 
gether."-^ Although  the  family  remained  at  Chelsea, 
More's  poverty  was  so  great  that  "he  was  not  able  for  the 
maintenance  of  himself  and  such  as  necessarily  belonged 
unto  him,  sufficiently  to  find  meat,  drink,  fuel,  apparel,  and 
such  other  necessary  charges. '  '^^ 

During  these  days  of  deep  distress  and  dark  forebodings, 
More's  one  thought  was  to  arm  himself  by  prayer  and  pen- 
ance for  the  final  struggle.  Meanwhile,  he  maintained  a 
strict  neutrality  on  the  momentous  questions  then  agitating 
the  country.  Urged  on  by  Anne  Boleyn,  who  hated  the  ex- 
chnncellor  because  he  had  refused  to  be  present  at  her  cor- 
onation, the  king  and  his  wily  creature  Thomas  Cromwell 
made  repeated  efforts  to  besmirch  his  good  name.  In  1533, 
they  put  his  name  on  the  bill  of  attainder  drawn  up  against 
the  Holy  Maid  of  Kent  and  her  adherents.  But  in  a  letter 
to  Cromwell,  More  fully  established  his  innocence.-^  In  like 
manner,  the  two  Franciscans,  FF.  Rich  and  Risby,  with 
whom  he  had  conferred  on  the  character  of  the  Maid,  de- 
clared him  innocent  of  any  dealings  with  her,  prejudicial 
to  his  majesty.  But  his  enemies,  especially  Cromwell,  were 
eager  for  his  ruin,  and  there  is  little  doubt  that  he  would 
have  been  executed  with  the  nun  and  her  party,  had  not  the 

24.  Roper,  p.  55. 

25.  Ibidem,  p.  53. 

26.  Harpsfleld,  quoted  by  Camm,  p.  188. 

27.  For  a  copy  of  this  letter  see  Bridg6tt,  pp.  323  seq. 


90  FRANCISCANS  AND 

Lords  begged  the  king  on  their  knees  to  take  his  name  from 
the  bill  and  to  await  a  more  "just"  cause  for  vengeance. 

On  March  30,  1534,  the  Act  of  Succession  was  passed.'^ 
A  commission  was  appointed  by  the  king  before  which,  More 
was  informed,  he  would  have  to  appear  on  April  13,  at  Lam- 
beth. He  had  previously  written  to  Cromwell  that  his  soul 
would  be  '  *  in  right  great  peril  if  he  should  follow  the  other 
side  and  deny  the  primacy  to  be  provided  by  God. ' '-®  What- 
ever others  might  hold,  to  him  it  was  now  a  matter  of  con- 
science, for  which  he  was  ready  to  suffer  all.  On  the  morn- 
ing of  April  13,  he  attended  holy  Mass  for  the  last  time  at 
Chelsea  and  received  the  sacraments.  Then  he  bade  fare- 
well to  his  grief-stricken  family.  His  own  heart,  too,  was 
steeped  in  sorrow.  ' '  I  thank  our  Lord  the  field  is  won, ' '  he 
said  to  this  son-in-law,  William  Roper,  when  the  boat  struck 
off  from  shore  and  he  cast  a  last  look  on  his  beautiful  Chelsea 
home.^° 

From  a  letter  which  he  wrote  to  his  daughter  Margaret 
four  days  later,  we  learn  how  steadfastly  he  refused  to  take 
the  oath  which  the  commission  presented  to  him,  always 
maintaining  that  it  would  imperil  his  conscience.  Accused 
of  obstinacy  and  pride  in  placing  his  own  private  judgment 
over  the  decision  of  learned  and  God-fearing  men  who  had 
already  taken  the  oath.  More  replied, ' '  If  there  were  no  more 
than  myself  upon  my  side,  and  the  whole  parliament  upon 
the  other,  I  would  be  sore  afraid  to  lean  to  mine  own  mind 
only  against  so  many.  But  on  the  other  side,  if  it  so  be  that 
in  some  things,  for  which  I  refuse  the  oath,  I  have  (as  I 
think  I  have )  upon  my  part  as  great  a  Council  and  a  greater 
too,  I  am  not  then  bounden  to  change  my  conscience  and 

28.  According  to  this  Act,  the  children  of  Anne  Boleyn  were  to  suc- 
ceed to  the  throne.  Any  English  subject  who  refused  to  take  the  oath 
obliging  them  to  observe  and  maintain  the  Act  in  all  its  effects  and  con- 
tents was  declared  guilty  of  high  treason.  The  preamble  which  the  com- 
missioners included  in  the  formula  of  the  oath  declared  the  king's  marriage 
with  Catherine  of  Aragon  invalid  and  his  recent  marriage  with  Anne 
Boleyn  valid.  Now,  just  the  contrary  had  been  oflBcially  and  solemnly  pro- 
claimed by  the  Holy  See  a  week  previous  to  the  passing  of  the  Act.  The 
oath,  therefore,  necessarily  Implied  a  rejection  of  papal  authority.  This 
explains  More's  attitude. 

29.  See  Camm,  p.  194.  30.  Roper,  p.  71. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  91 

conform  it  to  the  Council  of  one  realm,  against  the  general 
Council  of  Christendom.  .  .  .  Surely  as  to  swear  to  the 
succession  I  see  no  peril.  But  I  thought  and  think  it  reason 
that  to  mine  own  oath  I  look  well  myself,  and  be  of  counsel 
also  in  the  fashion,  and  never  intended  to  swear  for  a  piece, 
and  set  my  hand  to  the  whole  oath.  Howbeit,  as  help  me 
God,  as  touching  the  whole  oath  I  never  withdrew  any  man 
from  it,  nor  never  advised  any  to  refuse  it,  nor  never  put,  nor 
will  put,  any  scruple  in  any  man's  head,  but  leave  every  man 
to  his  own  conscience.  And  me  thinketh  in  good  faith,  that 
so  were  it  in  good  reason  that  every  man  should  leave  me  to 
mine."^^ 

After  the  hearing,  More  was  placed  with  the  Abbot  of 
"Westminster  and  held  there  for  four  days.  Not  knowing 
how  to  proceed  against  his  former  friend  and  favorite,  the 
king  consulted  the  Council.  Cranmer  proposed  a  compro- 
mise that  would  save  More  and  at  the  same  time  make  it 
appear  as  if  he  had  taken  the  oath.  But  Henry  would  not 
hear  of  this ;  he  wanted  More 's  full  submission  in  set  terms 
and  finally,  egged  on  by  Anne  Boleyn,  he  decided  that  the 
ex-chancellor  would  have  to  choose  between  taking  the  com- 
plete oath  and  going  to  prison.  Of  course,  the  man  of  God 
chose  the  latter,  and  on  April  17,  he  was  thrown  into  the 
Tower. 

Though  torn  from  those  he  loved,  the  valiant  champion 
found  the  seclusion  of  prison  quite  to  his  liking.  Convinced 
that  he  was  suffering  for  a  just  and  holy  cause,  he  prepared 
himself  for  the  day  when  he  would  be  called  upon  to  die  in 
its  defence.  The  prison  was  now  his  friary,  where  he  could 
pray  and  study  to  his  heart's  content.     Although  in  poor 

31.  Ibidem,  p.  111.  Regarding  Mora's  refusal  to  take  the  oath  of 
Buccession  In  the  proposed  form  Bridgett  says,  "By  comparing  the  various 
expressions  of  Sir  Thomas  together.  It  seems  that  he  was  himself  deterred 
....  by  several  reasons,  some  of  which  were  doctrinal,  and  held  by  the 
doctors  of  the  Church  ;  but  others  were  of  a  secret  nature  known  to  him- 
self, and  which  he  had  never  communicated  to  another,  and  would  not 
reveal  even  to  his  daughter.  Whether  these  had  reference  to  Anne  Boleyn's 
affinity  with  Henry,  or  her  precontract  of  marriage  with  Percy,  or  some 
other  impediment  still  more  secret,  we  cannot  now  discover,  any  more  than 
we  know  the  grounds  on  which  Cranmer  pronounced  that  Anne's  marriage 
with  Henry  had  been  null  from  the  beginning"  (p.  382). 


92  FRANCISCANS  AND 

health,  he  continued  his  wonted  mortifications.  He  never 
put  off  the  hair-shirt  and  took  the  discipline  regularly.  The 
Dialogue  of  Comfort  Against  Trihulation,  which  he  wrote  in 
prison  for  the  instruction  and  edification  of  his  grief-stricken 
family,  breathes  the  spirit  of  one  living  in  most  intimate 
union  with  God. 

About  a  month  after  his  imprisonment,  he  was  visited  by 
his  favorite  daughter  Margaret.  His  enemies  hoped  that  on 
her  entreaties  he  would  finally  submit.  In  vain,  liowever, 
did  she  plead  and  argue  with  him.  ' '  I  believe,  Megg, ' '  he 
said,  "that  they  that  have  put  me  here  ween  that  they  have 
done  me  a  high  displeasure :  but  I  assure  thee  on  my  faith, 
mine  own  good  daughter,  if  it  had  not  been  for  my  wife  and 
ye  that  be  my  children  (whom  I  account  the  chief  part  of 
my  charge)  I  would  not  have  failed  long  ere  this  to  have 
closed  myself  in  as  straight  a  room,  and  straighter  too.  But 
since  I  am  come  hither  without  mine  own  desert,  I  trust 
that  God  of  His  Goodness  will  discharge  me  of  my  care, 
and  with  His  gracious  help  supply  my  lack  among  you. 
I  find  no  cause,  I  thank  God,  Megg,  to  reckon  myself 
in  worse  case  than  in  mine  own  house,  for  me  thinketh 
God  maketh  me  a  wanton,  and  setteth  me  on  his  lap  and 
dandleth  me."^- 

On  another  occasion,  Margaret  told  her  father  that  she 
had  a  letter,  which  proved  how  his  persistence  was  alienating 
his  friends.  "What,  Mistress  Eve,"  More  replied  with  a 
smile,  "hath  my  daughter  Alington  played  the  serpent  with 
you,  and  with  a  letter  set  you  to  work  to  come  and  tempt 
your  father  again,  and  for  the  favor  that  you  bear  him, 
labor  to  make  him  swear  against  his  conscience  and  send  him 
to  the  devil  ?  Daughter  Margaret, ' '  he  continued,  ' '  we  two 
have  talked  of  this  thing  ofter  than  twice  or  thrice.  And 
the  same  tale,  in  effect,  that  you  tell  me  now  therein,  and  the 
same  fear  too,  have  you  twice  told  me  before,  and  I  have 
twice  answered  you  too,  that  in  this  matter  if  it  were  possi- 
ble for  me  to  do  the  thing  that  might  content  the  king's 

32.  Roper,  p.  74, 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION     93 

grace,  and  God  therewith  not  offended,  then  hath  no  man 
taken  this  oath  already  more  gladly  than  I  would  do. '  '^^ 

What  grieved  him  above  all  was  the  misery  to  which  his 
family  had  been  put  on  his  account.  This  is  evident  from  a 
letter  which  he  wrote  to  Margaret  about  this  time. 

If  I  had  not  been,  my  dearly  beloved  daughter,  at  a  firm  and 
fast  point,  I  trust,  in  God's  great  mercy  this  good  great  while 
before,  your  lamentable  letter  had  not  a  little  abashed  me,  surely 
far  above  all   other   things,   of  which   I  hear  divers   times  not   a 

few    terrible    toward    me A    deadly    grief    unto    me,    and 

much  more  deadly  than  to  hear  of  mine  death  (for  the  fear  thereof, 
I  thank  our  Lord,  the  fear  of  hell,  the  hope  of  heaven,  and  the 
passion  of  Christ  daily  more  and  more  assuage),  is,  that  I  perceive 
my  good  son  your  husband,  and  you  my  good  daughter,  and  my 
good  wife,   and  mine  other  good  children   and  innocent  friends,  in 

great    displeasure   and   danger   of   great   harm   thereby Out 

of  which  (trouble)  I  beseech  Him  to  bring  me,  when  His  will  shall 
be,  into  His  endless  bliss  of  Heaven,  and  in  the  meanwhile,  give 
me  grace  and  you  both,  in  all  our  agonies  and  troubles,  devoutly 
to  resort  prostrate  unto  the  remembrance  of  that  bitter  agony, 
which  our  Saviour  suffered  before  His  passion  at  the  Mount.  And 
if  we  diligently  so  do,  I  verily  trust  we  shall  find  therein  great 
comfort  and  consolation.  And  thus,  my  dear  daughter,  the  blessed 
spirit  of  Christ,  for  His  tender  mercy,  govern  and  guide  you  all, 
to  His  pleasure  and  to  your  weal  and  comfort,  both  body  and  soul.34 

Lady  More  was  also  permitted  to  visit  him.  Unable  to 
understand  her  husband's  attitude,  she  used  all  her  house- 
hold eloquence  to  bring  about  his  submission  to  the  king, 

"What  the  good-yere,  Master  More,"  she  said,  "I  mar- 
vel that  you  that  have  been  always  hitherto  taken  for  so  wise 
a  man  will  now  so  play  the  fool  to  lie  here  in  this  close,  filthy 
prison,  and  be  content  thus  to  be  shut  up  among  mice  and 
rats,  when  you  might  be  abroad  at  your  liberty,  and  with 

33.  Ibidem,  p.  119.  In  extenuation  of  Margaret's  conduct  Bridgett 
says,  "The  affectionate  daughter  had  no  thought  of  leading  her  father  to 
do  what  was  unworthy  of  him.  When  we  see  one  so  pure  and  wise  as  Mar- 
garet Roper  thus  deceived  (she  had  talien  the  oath  with  the  saving  clause: 
so  far  as  Christ's  law  allows),  we  can  estimate  the  enormity  of  the  scandal 
given  to  the  laity  by  the  prelates  and  clergy,  of  England,  and  we  can  also 
estimate  the  magnificence  of  More's  loyalty  to  conscience,  that  he  should 
be  in  no  ways  swayed  by  that  example,  thus  pressed  upon  him  by  the 
mouth  of  his  accomplished  and  beloved  daughter"   (p.  374). 

34.  Roper,  pp.  153  seq. 


94  FRANCISCANS  AND 

the  favour  and  good  will  botli  of  the  king  and  his  council  if 
you  would  but  do  as  all  the  bishops  and  best  learned  of  this 
realm  have  done.  And  seeing  you  have  at  Chelsea  a  right 
fair  house,  your  library,  your  gallery,  your  garden,  your 
orchard,  and  all  other  necessaries  so  handsome  about  you, 
where  you  might  in  the  company  of  me  your  wife,  your 
children,  and  household,  be  merry,  I  muse  what  a  God's 
name  you  mean  here  still  thus  fondly  to  tarry. ' ' 

' '  I  pray  thee,  good  Mistress  Alice, ' '  put  in  More  with  a 
smile,  *'tell  me  one  thing." 

"What  is  that?"  asked  his  wife. 

* '  Is  not  this  house  as  nigh  heaven  as  mine  own  ? ' ' 

"Tyllevalle,  Tyllevalle!" 

* '  How  say  you,  Mistress  Alice,  is  it  not  so  ? " 

"Bone  Deus,  Bone  Dens,  man,  will  this  gear  never  be 
left?" 

"Well  then.  Mistress  Alice,  if  it  be  so,  it  is  very  well. 
For  I  see  no  great  cause  why  I  should  much  joy  in  my  gay 
house,  or  in  any  thing  thereunto  belonging,  when  if  I  should 
but  seven  years  lie  buried  under  the  ground  and  then  arise 
and  come  thither  again,  I  should  not  fail  to  find  some  therein 
that  would  bid  me  get  out  of  doors,  and  tell  me  it  were  none 
of  mine.  What  cause  have  I  then  to  like  such  a  house  as 
would  so  soon  forget  his  master  ?"^^ 

As  time  wore  on  without  any  change  in  More's  attitude 
toward  the  required  oath,  his  imprisonment  became  more 
severe.  In  November,  1534,  the  lands  he  had  received  from 
the  king  ten  years  before  were  confiscated.  This  made  his 
family  almost  penniless.  Repeatedly  they  appealed  to 
Henry  for  assistance ;  but  the  cruel  king  and  his  minister 
only  gloated  over  the  sorrow  they  were  thereby  causing  their 
dauntless  prisoner  in  the  Tower.  Finally,  all  visits  were 
prohibited,  and  what  pained  him  most,  he  was  no  longer  per- 
mitted to  attend  holy  Mass.  Despite  privation  and  suffer- 
ing, however,  he  was  determined  to  persevere  on  the  path 
of  duty  to  the  end.     This  is  evident  from  a  letter  which  he 

35.  Ibidem,  pp.  81  seq. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION      95 

addressed  to  a  priest  early  in  January,  1535.  This  priest, 
whose  name  was  Leader,  having  heard  that  More  had  re- 
lented and  taken  the  oath,  wrote  to  him  apparently  to  con- 
gratulate him  on  his  approaching  deliverance  from  prison. 
"The  tale  that  is  reported,"  the  prisoner  replied  in  part, 
"albeit  I  cannot  but  thank  you  though  ye  would  it  were 
true,  yet  I  thank  God  it  is  very  vanity.  And  I  trust  in  the 
great  goodness  of  God  that  He  shall  never  suffer  it  to  be  true. 
If  my  mind  had  been  obstinate  in  deed,  I  would  not  let  for 
any  rebuke  or  worldly  shame  plainly  to  confess  the  truth ; 
for  I  propose  not  to  depend  upon  the  fame  of  the  world. 
But  I  thank  God  that  the  thing  I  do  is  not  for  obstinacy,  but 
for  the  salvation  of  my  soul,  because  I  cannot  induce  mine 
own  mind  otherwise  to  think  than  I  do  concerning  the 
oath.  ...  If  ever  I  should  mishap  to  receive  the  oath 
(which  I  trust  Our  Lord  shall  never  suffer  me),  ye  may 
reckon  sure  that  it  were  expressed  and  extorted  by  duress 
and  hard  handling.  For  all  the  goods  of  this  world,  I 
thank  Our  Lord  I  set  not  much  more  by  than  I  do  by  dust. 
.  .  .  I  beseech  Our  Lord  that  all  may  prove  as  true  faith- 
ful subjects  to  the  king  that  have  sworn,  as  I  am  in  my  mind 
sure  they  be  which  have  refused  to  swear.  "^'^ 

On  April  30,  1535,  we  learn  from  his  letter  to  Margaret, 
Cromwell  with  other  members  of  the  Council  came  to  the 
Tower  to  exact  from  him  a  clear  and  definite  statement  re- 
garding the  king's  spiritual  supremacy.  Among  other 
things  they  accused  him  of  scandalizing  the  people  by  his 
obstinacy  and  threatened  that  the  law  would  take  its  course 
were  he  to  persist  in  his  opposition  to  the  king's  demand. 
Declaring  that  he  had  never  sought  to  influence  any  one  in 
the  matter  of  the  oath,  he  continued,  "I  am  the  king's  true 
faithful  subject  and  daily  bedesman,  and  pray  for  his  high- 
ness and  all  the  realm.  I  do  nobody  no  harm,  I  say  none 
harm,  I  think  none  harm,  but  wish  everybody  good.  And  if 
this  be  not  enough  to  keep  a  man  alive,  in  good  faith  I  long 
not  to  live.     And  I  am  dying  already,  and  have  since  I 

36.   Bridgett,  p.  379. 


96  FRANCISCANS  AND 

came  here,  been  divers  times  in  the  ease  that  I  thought  to 
die  within  one  hour.  And  I  thank  our  Lord  that  I  was 
never  sorry  for  it,  but  rather  sorry  when  I  saw  the  pang  past. 
And  therefore  my  poor  body  is  at  the  king's  pleasure. 
Would  God  my  death  might  do  him  good. ' '"  A  few  weeks 
later  the  king 's  men  repeated  their  visit.  When  More  again 
shrewdly  evaded  an  open  declaration  concerning  royal 
supremacy,  his  enemies  accused  him  of  cowardice,  alleging 
that  for  fear  of  death  he  dared  not  speak  his  mind  freely. 
To  this  the  holy  man  made  the  memorable  reply,  "I  have 
not  been  a  man  of  such  holy  living  that  I  might  be  bold  to 
offer  myself  to  death,  lest  God,  for  my  presumption,  might 
suffer  me  to  fall ;  and,  therefore,  I  put  not  myself  forward, 
but  draw  back.  Howbeit,  if  God  draw  me  to  it  Himself, 
then  trust  I  in  His  great  mercy  that  He  shall  not  fail  to 
give  me  grace  and  strength.  "^^ 

The  glorious  martyrdom  of  the  Carthusians  on  June  19, 
and  that  of  Blessed  John  Fisher,  three  days  later,  made  it 
clear  to  More  that  also  his  day  of  triumph  was  fast  approach- 
ing. Despoiled  of  all  his  books  and  writing  material  and 
shut  up  in  solitary  confinement,  he  devoted  his  time  exclu- 
sively to  prayer  &nd  mortification.  But  his  heart  was  as 
staunch  and  as  cheerful  as  ever.  Asked  one  day  by  the 
jailer  why  he  always  kept  the  blind  down  and  sat  in  utter 
darkness,  he  replied  with  a  smile  of  sweet  composure, ' '  What 
should  I  do  ?  When  the  wares  are  taken  away,  should  not 
the  shop  be  closed? "3^ 

On  July  1,  the  servant  of  God  was  taken  from  his  cell 
and  conducted  to  Westminster  for  trial.  "To  make  the 
greater  impression  on  the  people,"  writes  Lingard,  "per- 
haps to  add  to  his  shame  and  suffering,  More  was  led  on  foot, 
in  a  coarse  woolen  gown,  through  the  most  frequented 
streets,  from  the  Tower  to  Westminster  Hall.  The  color 
of  his  hair,  which  had  lately  become  gray,  his  face,  which, 
though  cheerful,  was  pale  and  emaciated,  and  the  staff,  with 

37.  Roper,  p.  165.  38.  Ibidem,  p.  173. 

39.  Sander,  De  Origine  ac  Progressu  Schismatia  AngUcanl,  first  edition 
(1586).  p.  81;  Rlshton  edition  (1690),  p.  184. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  97 

which  he  supported  his  feeble  steps,  announced  the  rigor 
and  duration  of  his  confinement."*"  His  appearance  in 
court  and  his  subsequent  reply  after  the  indictment  had  been 
read  made  a  deep  impression  on  all  present.  Referring  to 
the  seditious  utterances  which  Richard  Rich  had  falsely  ac- 
cused him  of  having  made  during  a  conversation  in  the 
Tower,  the  martyr  said : 

* '  If  I  were  a  man,  my  lords,  that  did  not  regard  an  oath, 
I  need  not  stand  in  this  place  at  this  time  as  an  accused  per- 
son. And  if  this  oath  of  yours,  Mr.  Rich,  be  true,  then  I 
pray  that  I  may  never  see  the  face  of  God,  which  I  would 
not  say  were  it  otherwise  to  win  the  whole  world."  Then, 
having  repeated  the  conversation  as  it  had  really  taken 
place,  he  continued :  "  In  good  faith,  Mr.  Rich,  I  am  sorrier 
for  your  perjury  than  for  my  own  peril ;  but  neither  I,  nor 
any  other  man  else,  to  my  knowledge,  ever  took  you  to  be  a 
man  of  such  credit,  as  that,  in  any  matter  of  importance,  I, 
or  any  other,  would,  at- any  time,  vouchsafe  to  communicate 
with  you.  And  I,  as  you  know,  of  no  small  while,  have  been 
acquainted  with  you  and  your  conversation,  who  have  known 
you  from  your  youth  hitherto,  for  we  long  dwelled  together 
in  one  parish.  I  am  sorry  you  compel  me  so  to  say,  that 
you  were  esteemed  very  light  of  tongue,  a  great  dicer,  and 
of  no  commendable  fame.  And  so  in  your  house  at  the 
Temple,  where  hath  been  your  chief  bringing  up,  were  you 
likewise  accounted. 

"Can  it,  therefore,  seem  likely  to  your  honorable  lord- 
ships that  I  would,  in  so  weighty  a  cause,  so  unadvisedly 
overshoot  myself  as  to  trust  Mr.  Rich,  a  man  of  me  always 
reputed  of  little  troth,  so  far  above  my  soverign  lord  the 
king  or  any  of  his  noble  councillors,  that  I  would  utter  unto 
him  the  secrets  of  my  conscience  touching  the  king's 
supremacy,  the  special  point  at  my  hands  so  long  sought 
for — a  thing  I  never  did,  nor  never  would,  after  the  statute 
made  thereof,  reveal  unto   the  King's  highness  himself? 

40.  LIngard,  History  of  England  (New  York,  1879),  Vol.  V,  p.  21. 


98  FRANCISCANS  AND 

Can  this,  in  your  judgment,  my  lords,  seem  likely  to  be 
true?"" 

When  the  martyr  had  finished  speaking,  the  jurymen 
were  asked  to  give  their  verdict.  After  a  quarter  of  an 
hour 's  private  consultation  they  returned  to  the  court  room 
and  declared  the  prisoner  guilty  of  treason,  whereupon  the 
chancellor  sentenced  him  to  death  by  hanging,  drawing,  and 
quartering.  On  hearing  his  sentence,  the  holy  man  rose 
quietly  from  his  seat.  The  time  had  now  come  for  him  to 
make  a  public  profession  of  faith. 

"Since  I  am  condemned  and  God  knows  how,"  he  said, 
'  *  I  wish  to  speak  freely  of  your  statute,  for  the  discharge  of 
my  conscience.  For  the  seven  years  that  I  have  studied  the 
matter,  I  have  not  read  in  any  approved  doctor  of  the  Church 
that  a  temporal  lord  could  or  ought  to  be  head  of  the  spirit- 
uality." 

"What,  More,"  broke  in  the  chancellor,  "you  wish  to  be 
considered  wiser  and  of  better  conscience  than  all  the  bishops 
and  nobles  of  the  realm  ? ' ' 

"My  lord,"  replied  the  martyr  calmly,  "for  one  bishop 
of  your  opinion  I  have  a  hundred  saints  of  mine ;  and  for 
one  parliament  of  yours,  and  God  knows  of  what  kind,  I 
have  all  the  General  Councils  for  1,000  years ;  and  for  one 
kingdom  I  have  France  and  all  the  kingdoms  of  Christen- 
dom." 

At  this,  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  suggested  that  now  the 
malice  of  the  prisoner  was  clear.  But  More  was  nothing 
perturbed. 

"What  I  say,"  he  explained,  "is  necessary  for  the  dis- 
charge of  my  conscience  and  satisfaction  of  my  soul,  and  to 
this  I  call  God  to  witness,  the  sole  searcher  of  human  hearts. 
I  said  further,  that  your  statute  is  ill  made,  because  you  have 
sworn  never  to  do  anything  against  the  Church,  which, 
through  all  Christendom,  is  one  and  undivided,  and  you 
have  no  authority,  without  the  common  consent  of  all  Chris- 
tians, to  make  a  law  or  Act  of  Parliament  or  Council  against 

41.  Roper,  pp.  86  seq. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  99 

the  union  of  Christendom.  I  know  well  that  the  reason  why 
you  have  condemned  me  is  because  I  have  never  been  willing 
to  consent  to  the  king's  second  marriage;  but  I  hope,  in  the 
Divine  goodness  and  mercy,  that,  as  St.  Paul  and  St. 
Stephen,  whom  he  persecuted,  are  now  friends  in  Paradise, 
so  we,  though  differing  in  this  world,  shall  be  united  in  per- 
fect charity  in  the  other.  I  pray  God  to  protect  the  king, 
and  give  him  good  counsel. '  '*- 

He  was  then  brought  back  to  prison.  When  Margaret 
waiting  with  other  members  of  the  family  at  the  Tower 
Wharf  saw  her  condemned  father,  she  ran  up  to  him,  fell 
about  his  neck  and  kissed  him.  With  mingled  joy  and  sor- 
row he  comforted  and  blessed  her.  But  not  satisfied,  his 
affectionate  daughter  ran  to  him  a  second  time;  "and  at 
last,  with  a  full  and  heavy  heart,  was  fain  to  depart  from 
him :  the  beholding  whereof  was  to  many  of  them  that  were 
present  thereat  so  lamentable,  that  it  made  them  for  very 
sorrow  and  weep  and  mourn. ' '"  Later,  when  the  martyr  saw 
that  Sir  William  Kingston,  constable  of  the  Tower,  was 
weeping,  he  said,  ' '  Good  Master  Kingston,  trouble  not  your- 
self, but  be  of  good  cheer ;  for  I  will  pray  for  you,  and  my 
good  lady  your  wife,  that  we  may  meet  in  heaven  together, 
where  we  shall  be  merry  for  ever  and  ever. '  '** 

No  date  had  been  fixed  for  his  execution.  But  the 
martyr  knew  that  the  end  was  near  and  spent  the  remaining 
few  days  in  closest  union  with  God.  To  strengthen  him- 
self for  the  deadly  conflict,  he  scourged  his  innocent  flesh 
most  severely.  It  is  also  said  that  he  wrapped  himself  in  a 
white  sheet  and  like  a  corpse  prepared  for  burial  paced  his 
gloomy  cell  meditating  on  death  and  eternity.  On  July  5, 
the  day  before  his  martyrdom,  he  sent  his  hair-shirt  to 
Margaret  together  with  a  letter  which  was  written  with  a 
charred  stick  and  read  in  part: 

Our  Lord  bless  you,  good  daughter,  and  your  good  husband,  and 
your  little  boy,  and  all  yours,  and  all  my  children,  and  all  my  god- 
children and  all  our  friends I  cumber  you,  good  Margaret, 

42.  Bridgett,  p.  422.  43.   Roper,  p.  97.  44.  Ibidem,  p.  96. 


100 


FRANCISCANS  AND 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  .^  "  ,101' 

much,  but  I  would  be  sorry  if  it  should  be  any  longer  than'  io-' 
morrow,  for  it  is  St.  Thomas'  Eve,  and  the  Utas  of  St.  Peter;  and, 
therefore,  to-morrow  long  I  to  go  to  God.  It  were  a  day  very 
meet  and  convenient  for  me.  I  never  liked  your  manner  toward  me 
better  than  when  you  kissed  me  last;  for  I  love  when  daughterly 
love  and  dear  charity  hath  no  leisure  to  look  to  worldly  courtesy. 
Farewell,  my  dear  child,  and  pray  for  me,  and  I  shall  for  you  and 
all  your  friends  that  we  may  merrily  meet  in  heaveu.43 

It  is  related  on  the  authority  of  Cresacre  More  that  when 
the  martyr  was  told  that  the  king  had  commuted  his  punish- 
ment to  decapitation,  he  replied, ' '  God  forbid  the  king  should 
use  any  more  such  mercy  unto  any  of  my  friends,  and  God 
bless  all  my  posterity  from  such  pardons. '  '*''  July  6,  as  he 
had  desired,  was  the  day  set  for  his  execution.  Early  that 
morning.  Sir  Thomas  Pope,  a  cherished  friend  of  his,  came 
and  told  him  that  by  the  king's  orders  he  was  to  die  before 
nine  o'clock.  "Master  Pope,"  was  his  cheerful  reply,  "for 
your  good  tidings  I  heartily  thank  you.  I  have  always 
been  much  bounden  to  the  king's  highness  for  the  benefits 
and  honours  that  he  had  still  from  time  to  time  most  bounti- 
fully heaped  upon  me ;  and  yet  more  bounden  am  I  to  his 
grace  for  putting  me  into  this  place,  where  I  have  had  con- 
venient time  and  space  to  have  remembrance  of  my  end. 
And  so  help  me  God,  most  of  all.  Master  Pope,  am  I  bounden 
to  his  highness  that  it  pleaseth  him  so  shortly  to  rid  me  out 
of  the  miseries  of  this  wretched  world,  and  therefore  will  I 
not  fail  earnestly  to  pray  for  his  grace,  both  here,  and  also 
in  the  world  to  come. ' '  When  he  noticed  that  his  old  friend 
was  weeping,  the  martyr  sought  to  comfort  him.  "Quiet 
yourself,  good  Master  Pope, ' '  he  said,  ' '  and  be  not  discom- 
forted, for  I  trust  that  we  shall  once  in  heaven  see  each  other 
full  merrily,  where  we  shall  be  sure  to  live  and  love  together, 
in  joyful  bliss  eternally."*^ 

Bodily  suffering  and  mental  anguish  had  not  robbed  him 
of  his  characteristic  cheerfulness.  The  prospect  of  heavenly 
bliss  sustained  him  amid  the  gloom  of  prison  life  and  even 

45.  Ibidem,  p.  175.  47.  Roper,  pp.  99  seq. 

46.  Bridgett,  p.  431,  footnote. 


102  FRANCISCANS  AND 

now  made  his  heart  leap  for  joy  when  Kingston,  the  lieu- 
tenant of  the  Tower,  arrived  and  told  him  that  his  hour  had 
come.  Gladly,  almost  merrily,  he  followed  the  guards  to 
Tower  Hill,  the  place  of  execution.  Noticing  that  the  scaf- 
fold shook  when  he  placed  his  foot  on  the  ladder,  he  turned 
to  Kingston  and  said  with  a  smile,  "I  pray  you.  Master 
Lieutenant,  see  me  safely  up,  and  for  my  coming  down  let 
me  shift  for  myself."  With  this  he  mounted  the  scaffold, 
and  turning  to  the  people  who  had  assembled  in  great  num- 
bers, he  briefly  asked  them  "to  pray  for  him  and  to  bear 
witness  with  him,  that  he  should  now  suffer  death  in  and 
for  the  faith  of  the  Holy  Catholic  Church. ' '  With  profound 
devotion  he  recited  the  psalm  Miserere.  As  was  customary, 
the  executioner  begged  his  forgiveness;  whereupon  the 
martyr  kissed  him  tenderly  and  said,  "Pluck  up  thy  spirits, 
man,  and  be  not  afraid  to  do  thine  office :  my  neck  is  very 
short,  take  heed,  therefore,  thou  strike  not  awry,  for  saving 
of  thine  honesty. '  '*^  Then  having  blindfolded  his  eyes  with 
a  cloth  he  had  brought  with  him,  he  knelt  down  at  the  block. 
The  executioner  had  already  raised  the  ax,  when  the  holy 
man,  as  Cresacre  relates,  signed  for  a  moment's  delay,  and 
put  aside  his  beard,  saying  that  it  had  not  committed  trea- 
son.^^  Then  he  once  more  laid  his  head  on  the  block,  and 
while  his  lips  moved  in  prayer,  the  fatal  blow  was  dealt  that 
won  for  him  the  crown  of  martyrdom. 

King  Henry  was  playing  at  backgammon  with  Anne 
Boleyn  when  a  messenger  came  and  informed  him  that  the 
execution  had  taken  place.  Remorse  seems  to  have  filled 
his  black  soul ;  for  turning  to  his  worthless  paramour,  he  said 
bitterly,  "Thou  art  the  cause  of  this  man's  death. "^'^  Whole 
Europe  stood  aghast  on  learning  that  the  former  Chancellor 
of  England  had  suffered  death  at  the  block.  Roper  relates 
that  when  Emperor  Charles  V  heard  of  it,  he  said  to  the 
English  ambassador, ' '  Had  we  been  master  of  such  a  servant, 

48.  Ibidem,  p.  101. 

49.  Bridgett,  p.  435,  footnote. 

50.  Camm,  p.  237  ;  also  Strickland,  Lives  of  the  Queens  of  England, 
Yol.  II,  p.  670. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  103 

of  whose  doings  ourselves  have  had  these  many  years  no 
small  experience,  we  would  rather  have  lost  the  best  city  of 
our  dominions,  than  have  lost  such  a  worthy  councillor.  "°^ 

Thus  lived  and  died  the  great  Tertiary  Chancellor  of 
England,  ''loyal  to  his  sovereign  to  the  last,  yet  giving  his 
life  for  the  higher  loyalty  he  owed  to  the  Vicar  of  Christ, 
and  bearing  himself  in  every  relation  of  life  with  the  free- 
hearted joyfulness  of  one  for  whom  no  earthly  pleasures, 
cares,  or  trials  could  cloud  over  the  blue  horizon  beyond 
which  lay  the  vision  of  God." 

Harpsfield  informs  us  that  the  martyr's  head  was  im- 
paled on  London  Bridge.  Here,  according  to  Stapleton,  it 
remained  "for  a  month,  when  Margaret  Roper  bribed  the 
man  whose  business  it  was  to  throw  it  into  the  river  to  give 
it  to  her."  With  the  consent  of  the  Council,  she  preserved 
it  in  a  leaden  vessel.  What  became  of  the  precious  relic 
after  her  death  in  1544,  is  not  known.  As  to  the  martyr's 
body,  we  are  told  that  by  order  of  the  governor  it  was 
given  to  Margaret  who  with  the  assistance  of  her  former 
maid,  Dorothy  Harris,  and  her  adopted  sister,  Margaret 
Clements,  buried  it  in  the  chapel  of  St.  Peter  ad  Vincula 
in  the  Tower.  ' '  The  spot  pointed  out  at  present, ' '  we  learn 
from  Bridgett, ' '  is  near  the  entrance  to  the  small  bell-tower ; 
and  if  that  was  the  resting-place  of  the  holy  ashes,  they  will 
not  have  been  removed  to  the  vaults,  as  was  the  case  with 
those  in  the  nave,  when  the  church  was  repaired  in  1876. '  '^^ 
By  the  decree  of  Pope  Leo  XIII,  dated  December  29,  1886, 
the  illustrious  Tertiary  martyr  was  enrolled  among  the 
Blessed. 

51.  Roper,  p.  102.      • 

52.  Bridgett,  pp.  435  eeq. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

CATHERINE  OF  ARAGON,  FRANCISCAN  TERTIARY 

The  Spanish  princess — Departure  for  England — Sudden 
death  of  Prince  Arthur,  her  consort — She  marries  his 
brother  Henry — Eighteen  years  of  marital  happiness — 
The  king's  infidelity — The  divorce  question — Catherine 
and  the  papal  commission — Before  the  ecclesiastical 
court  at  Blackfriars — The  queen's  appeal  to  Rome  ad- 
mitted— Henry  retaliates — Catherine  insulted  and  dis- 
owned— Her  secluded  life  at  the  More — At  Buckden — 
At  Kimholton  Castle — Bodily  and  mental  suffering — 
Royal  supremacy — Within  sight  of  the  scaffold — Her 
last  illness  and  violent  death — An  estimate  of  her 
character. 

The  history  of  the  English  Franciscans  during  the  first 
years  of  the  religious  persecution  would  be  incomplete  with- 
out a  special  chapter  on  Queen  Catherine.  Her  private  and 
public  life  bears  a  striking  resemblance  to  that  of  Bl. 
Thomas  More.  Like  him  she  was  a  Tertiary  of  St.  Francis  * 
and  by  unfeigned  loyalty  to  her  God  and  to  her  king  made 
manifest  how  deeply  the  spirit  of  St.  Francis  was  rooted  in 
her  noble  and  beautiful  soul. 

1.  Dr.  Nicolas  Sander  is  our  main  authority  on  this  question.  He 
lived  from  1530  to  1581.  His  much-quoted  work,  De  Originc  ac  Progressu 
Bchismatis  Anglicani,  was  published  for  the  first  time  four  years  after  his 
death.  "It  is  now  acknowledged  to  be  an  excellent  popular  account  of 
the  period  from  the  Catholic  point  of  view,"  says  J.  P.  Polen  In  The 
Catholic  Enchjclopedia  (Vol.  XIII,  p.  436).  Sander  himself  affirms  in  the 
preface  of  his  work  that  he  recounts  the  history  of  the  schism  "conform- 
ably with  what  we  have  gathered  from  public  records  or  have  drawn  from 
both  the  writings  and  the  sayings  of  very  creditable  men,  or  at  least  have 
known  or  seen  ourselves."  On  page  5,  we  read  :  "Under  the  royal  robe, 
she  (Catherine)  wore  the  habit  of  Blessed  Francis,  in  whose  third  order 
she  had  enrolled  herself."  Rishton  did  not  question  this  statement  when 
he  reedited  Sander's  work,  in  1690.  It  is  likewise  attested  by  Davenport, 
Wadding,  Parkinson,  Leon,  Strickland,  Du  Boys,  Gu^rln,  Magllano,  Hope, 
Stone,  Heimbucher,  and  others, 

104 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  105 

Queen  Catherine  of  Aragon  was  the  youngest  daughter 
of  Ferdinand  of  Aragon  and  Isabella  of  Castile.  Born  at 
Alcala  de  Henares,  Spain,  on  December  15,  1484,  she  passed 
her  infancy  and  early  childhood  in  the  Christian  camp  be- 
fore the  walls  of  Granada.  In  1492,  this  last  Moorish  strong- 
hold in  Spain  surrendered  and  henceforth  became  the  home 


Queen  Catherine  of  Aragon 

of  Catherine.  Her  early  education  was  entrusted  to  the 
Franciscans,-  who  enjoyed  the  favor  and  esteem  of  the 
Catholic  Sovereigns  of  Spain.  Under  the  vigilant  care  of 
her  excellent  mother,  the  gifted  princess  acquired  those 
noble  qualities  of  heart  and  mind  which  were  one  day  to 
signalize  her  career  as  queen  of  England. 

At  the  tender  age  of  twelve  years,  Catherine  was  prom- 

2.  Gu6rin  :  Le  Palmier  Scraphiquc,  Vol.   I,  p.   124. 


106  FKANCISCANS  AND 

ised  in  marriage  to  Prince  Arthur,  the  elder  son  of  Henry 
VII  and  heir  apparent  to  the  English  throne.  Four  years 
later,  on  September  26,  she  bade  farewell  to  her  cherished 
home  and  kindred  and  attended  by  a  splendid  retinue  em- 
barked for  England.  After  a  voyage  of  six  days,  she  landed 
at  Plymouth.  Elaborate  festivities  marked  her  journey  to 
London,  where,  on  November  14,  in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral, 
the  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  attended  by  nineteen  bishops 
and  mitered  abbots,  performed  the  solemn  marriage  cere- 
monies.^ Little  did  Arthur  and  Catherine,  amid  the  re- 
joicings of  whole  England,  imagine  how  soon  grim  death 
would  shatter  their  bright  prospects  for  a  long  and  happy 
union.  But  God  directs  the  destinies  of  men;  they  were 
never  to  live  together  as  husband  and  wife.  Shortly  after 
the  wedding.  Prince  Arthur  fell  dangerously  ill,  probably 
of  the  plague,*  and  the  next  spring,  on  April  2,  he  breathed 
his  last.^ 

Catherine  broken  in  spirit  answered  the  summons  of 
Queen  Elizabeth,  her  mother-in-law,  and  for  the  present 
resided  in  the  country  palace  of  Croydon.  Her  parents 
wished  her  to  return  to  Spain.  The  English  king,  however, 
anxious  to  secure  the  remaining  half  of  her  marriage  por- 
tion which  consisted  of  200,000  ducats,  proposed  that  she 
marry  his  younger  son  Henry.  Indeed,  after  the  death  of 
Queen  Elizabeth,  he  himself  wished  to  marry  Catherine. 
But  Queen  Isabella  of  Spain  would  not  hear  of  it,  and  the 
English  King  did  not  urge  the  matter,^  Finally,  he  suc- 
ceeded in  gaining  the  consent  of  the  Spanish  sovereigns  in 
behalf  of  his  son,  and  in  1504,  Pope  Julius  II  granted  the 
necessary  dispensation.  Though  Catherine  had  not  the  least 
misgivings  as  to  the  legality  of  a  union  with  Prince  Henry, 
she  was  averse  to  a  second  marriage,  especially  with  a  prince 

3.  It  Is  worthy  of  note  that  on  this  auspicious  day  Catherine  was 
escorted  from  the  bishop's  palace  to  the  cathedral  by  the  Duke  of  York, 
who  in  after  years,  as  Henry  VIII,  so  cruelly  embittered  her  life. 

4.  See  Strickland  :  Lives  of  the  Qurcns  of  Englatid,  Vol.  II,  p.  485. 

5.  From  the  testament  of  Arthur  in  which  he  bequeathed  nothing  to 
Catherine,  historians  rightly  Infer  that  he  never  regarded  her  as  actually 
his  wife.     See  Strickland,  p.  486. 

6.  Du  Boys  :  Catherine  D'Aragon,  p.  30. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  107 

who  was  five  years  her  junior.  She  desired  to  return  to  her 
native  land  and  to  join  the  Order  of  Poor  Clares  in  the 
convent  of  Toledo^  Hence  it  was  only  to  please  her  parents 
that  she  made  the  sacrifice,  and  on  June  25,  1504,  consented 
to  her  betrothal  to  Henry.  A  few  months  later.  Queen 
Isabella  died.  * '  Thus  unhappily  deprived  of  her  admirable 
mother,  she  was  left  a  passive  victim  at  the  disposal  of  the 
two  wily  diplomatists,  her  father  King  Ferdinand  and 
Henry  VII. '"^  The  English  king  subjected  her  to  every 
privation  and  indignity  to  extort  from  her  father  the  re- 
maining share  of  her  dowry,  while  Ferdinand,  greatly  im- 
poverished by  the  death  of  Queen  Isabella,  could  not  be  in- 
duced to  pay  it.  Then,  actuated  by  rather  unseemly  mo- 
tives,^ Henry  VII,  about  1506,  not  only  debarred  his  son 
from  meeting  his  future  consort,  but  even  forced  him  to 
sign  a  written  protest  against  his  previous  betrothal  to  her. 
All  this  combined  to  make  Catherine's  situation  very  em- 
barrassing. At  last  a  change  came.  Henry  VII  died  on 
April  22,  1509,  and  he  was  succeeded  by  his  son,  Henry 
VIII. 

Ever  since  the  death  of  his  brother  Arthur,  young 
Henry  had  been  witness  of  Catherine's  constancy  and  pa- 
tience in  suffering.  He  sympathized  with  the  wronged 
princess  and  in  time  became  sincerely  attached  to  her. 
Catherine,  too,  had  gradually  learned  to  esteem  the  English 
prince  whose  accession  to  the  throne  was  hailed  as  the  be- 
ginning of  an  era  of  national  peace  and  prosperity.  A  feel- 
ing of  joy  and  satisfaction  thrilled  the  English  nation, 
when  on  June  3,  1509,  Henry  and  Catherine  were  solemnly 
married  at  Greenwich,^"  and  when  on  June  24,  the  royal 
pair  were  crowned  at  Westminster."  No  one,  least  of  all 
Catherine,  then  thought  that  her  crown  of  gold  would 
eventually  become  a  crown  of  thorns. 


7.  Gu6rln,  p.  145.       8.   Strickland,  p.  4S8.      9.   See  Strickland,  p.  497. 

10.  Probably  In  the  Franciscan  church  adjoining  the  royal  palace. 

11.  It  is  Important  to  note  that  on  this  occasion  Catherine  appeared 
•with  flowing  hair  and  in  a  white  robe,  which,  according  to  custom,  was 
permitted  only  to  a  virgin.     See  Strickland,  p.  505  ;  also,  Du  Boys,  p.  88. 


108  FRANCISCANS  AND 

The  first  years  of  their  union  proved  a  period  of  mutual 
love  and  edification,  coupled  with  true  zeal  for  the  religious 
and  political  welfare  of  the  kingdom.  They  held  court 
chiefly  in  the  palace  at  Greenwich,  since  Henry  had  a  pre- 
dilection for  this  place/^  How  highly  the  king  esteemed 
his  worthy  spouse,  we  see  from  his  letter  to  Ferdinand  of 
Aragon.  "Her  eminent  virtues,"  he  wrote,  "daily  shine 
forth,  blossom,  and  increase  so  much,  that  if  we  still  were 
free,  her  we  would  choose  for  our  wife  before  all  others." 
Nor  was  this  mere  policy  on  his  part.  Catherine,  indeed, 
became  his  adviser  and  confidante  in  all  affairs  of  State. 
In  1513,  during  his  military  sojourn  in  Flanders,  he  ap- 
pointed her  regent,  granting  her  powers  such  as  no  English 
queen  had  ever  held.  It  was  in  great  part  due  to  her  that 
in  the  same  year  the  English  army  vanquished  the  invading 
Scots  at  Flodden  Field.  Catherine,  indeed,  was  wholly  de- 
voted to  Henry  and  to  the  interests  of  the  English  realm. 
She  rejoiced  at  the  news  of  Henry's  victory  over  the  French 
at  Guinegate,  and  after  making  a  pilgrimage  to  the  Lady- 
shrine  at  Walsingham,  hastened  to  Richmond  to  welcome 
him  home.^^ 

In  his  treatise  on  Christian  matrimony,  Erasmus  cites 
Catherine  as  a  model  wife  and  mother.  "What  house  is 
there,"  he  asks  incidentally,  "among  the  subjects  to  their 
realm,  that  can  offer  an  example  of  such  united  wedlock? 
Where  can  a  wife  be  found  better  matched  with  the  best 
of  husbands.""  In  her  private  life,  the  queen  was  a  mirror 
of  holiness.  She  was  wont  to  rise  at  midnight  and  to  pray 
in  the  church  while  the  friars  chanted  Matins  and  Lauds. 
At  five  in  the  morning,  she  dressed  hurriedly,  frequently 
averring  the  only  time  she  wasted  was  that  spent  in  dress- 
ing. Beneath  her  royal  robes,  she  wore  the  Tertiary  habit 
of  St.  Francis.  Every  Friday  and  Saturday  she  fasted; 
while  on  the  vigils  of  the  feasts  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  she 


12.  Timbs  :  Abbeys  .  ...  of  England  and  Wales,  Vol.  I,  p.  122. 

13.  Hope  :  First  Divorce  of  Henry  VIII,  pp.  24  seq. 

14.  Strickland,  pp.  518,  531. 


THE   PROTESTANT   REVOLUTION  109 

contented  herself  with  bread  and  water.  Twice  a  week,  on 
Wednesday  and  Friday,  she  went  to  Confession  and  re- 
ceived Holy  Communion  every  Sunday.  She  recited  the 
office  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  daily,  and  spent  six  hours  every 
morning'  in  church.  At  noon  she  would  read  for  the  space  of 
tMO  hours  the  lives  of  the  Saints  to  her  servants  and  attend- 
ants. Then  she  returned  to  church  and  remained  there  till 
almost  supper,  of  which  she  partook  very  sparingly.  She 
prayed  on  her  knees,  never  using  the  comfort  of  a  cushion. 
"Who  will  wonder,  that  so  saintly  a  w^oman  had  to  be  tried 
in  some  greater  fire  of  tribulation,  in  order  that  the  odor 
of  her  virtues  might  be  more  readily  diffused  over  the  entire 
Christian  world.  "^^ 

Needless  to  say,  the  pious  queen,  as  a  Tertiary  of  St. 
Francis,  held  the  Franciscan  friars  in  greatest  esteem. 
Having  spent  her  childhood  under  the  w'holesome  influence 
of  their  brethren  in  Spain,  she  was  happy  now  to  find  them 
equally  zealous  and  popular  in  England.  Their  friary  at 
Greenwich  adjoined  the  royal  palace,  which  naturally  en- 
tailed her  becoming  more  intimately  acquainted  with  them. 
Before  her  marriage  with  Henry,  she  requested  her  father 
to  send  her  a  Franciscan  from  Spain,  since  she  could  not 
confess  in  English. ^*^  Later,  however,  when  she  had  suffi- 
ciently mastered  the  language,  Bl.  John  Forest  became  her 
confessor  and  adviser ;  and  we  have  every  reason  to  believe 
that  her  subsequent  conduct  must  in  great  part  be  ascribed 
to  the  advice  given  her  by  the  saintly  f riar,^^ 

During  the  first  years  of  his  reign,  as  we  have  seen, 
Henry  zealously  shared  in  the  pious  practices  of  his  queen. 
But  alas !  clouds  of  adversity  gradually  began  to  darken 
their  mutual  love  and  happiness.  Of  the  five  children  with 
which  their  marriage  had  been  blessed,  all  had  died  except 
Mary  the  youngest,  who  subsequently,  in  1553,  ascended  the 

15.  This  fair  picture  of  Catherine's  personal  sanctity  is  taljen  from 
Sander,  p.  5. 

16.  Strickland,  p.  495,  quoting  a  fragmentary  letter  of  Catherine  to 
her  father.  King  Ferdinand,  of  Aragon. 

17.  This  partly  accounts  for  Henry's  subsequent  hatred  of  the  Fran- 
ciscans.    See  Stone  :  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  6. 


110  FRANCISCANS  AND 

throne  of  England.  These  premature  deaths  together  with 
the  gay  and  loose  life  at  court  gradually  estranged  the  heart 
of  Henry.  Catherine  knew  that  he  was  no  longer  a  true 
and  faithful  husband;  she  felt  that  her  piety  bored  him, 
that  her  very  presence  was  becoming  irksome  to  him.  Thus 
matters  stood  when,  early  in  1527,  to  her  utter  dismay  she 
learned  that  Wolsey  had  summoned  Henry  to  his  legatine 
court  to  examine  the  scruples  of  conscience  he  alleged  re- 
garding his  marriage.^^  The  queen  had  only  recently  re- 
covered from  a  severe  illness,  and  the  news  of  Henry's 
hypocritical  scheming  against  her  harassed  her  innermost 
soul.  Finally,  on  June  22,  1527,  the  king-  himself  laid  the 
affair  before  Catherine."  The  helpless  queen  was  now  con- 
vinced of  the  hypocrisy  of  her  faithless  consort  and  burst 
into  tears  when  he  told  her  to  leave  court,  since  he  could  no 
longer  share  her  company.  She  argued  with  him  and  de- 
clared she  would  never  live  apart  from  him.  Even  now  she 
treated  Anne  Boleyn  with  sweet  forbearance,  although  she 
knew  her  to  be  the  king 's  favorite  and  constant  attendant. 
Only  once,  at  a  game  of  cards,  did  she  tenderly  reproach 
her  rival,  saying,  "My  lady  Anne,  you  have  the  good  hap 
ever  to  stop  at  a  king ;  but  you  are  like  others,  you  will  have 
all  or  none."^** 

In  May  and  June,  1528,  a  plague,  called  the  sweating 
sickness,  carried  away  a  number  of  courtiers.  Anne  Boleyn 
was  the  first  to  contract  the  disease.  Henry  stricken  with 
fear  and  remorse  returned  to  Catherine  and  "instead  of 
attending  to  his  'secret  matter,'  joined  the  queen  in  her 
devotional  exercises,  confessing  himself  every  day  and  re- 
ceiving the  Communion  every  Sunday  and  festival. '  '-^  But 
no  sooner  had  the  plague  abated  than  he  recalled  his  favorite 

IS.  Cardinal  Wolsey  is  often  accused  of  having  first  raised  these  doubts 
in  Henry's  mind.  Dodd,  in  his  Church  History  of  England,  Vol.  I,  pp.  72 
seq  carefully  examines  the  various  theories  held  by  historians  on  this 
question  and  "then  concludes  with  Cavendish,  who  was  Wolsey's  secretary, 
that  the  king's  passion  for  Anne  Boleyn  "not  only  gave  the  first  motion  to, 
but  carried  on  the  whole  affair." 

19.  Hope.  p.  50  ;  also  Stone  :  Mary  the  First,  Queen  of  England,  p.  38. 

20.  Strickland,  p.  538. 

21.  Lingard  :  History  of  Enghnid,  Vol.  IV,  p.  250. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  111 

to  court.  The  following  October,  Campeggio,  the  papal 
legate,  arrived  in  England.  The  queen's  ascetic  habits 
made  Henry  hope  that  on  the  legate's  suggestion  she  would 
readily  enter  the  convent.  But,  in  an  interview  Catherine 
informed  Campeggio  that  as  queen  and  mother  she  could 
never  consent  to  such  a  thing,  and  boldly  rebuked  Wolsey 
for  confirming  the  king  in  his  shameless  perfidy.  "Of 
malice, ' '  she  declared, ' '  have  you  kindled  this  fire,  especially 
for  the  great  grudge  you  bear  to  my  nephew  the  emperor, 
whom  you  hate  worse  than  a  scorpion,  because  he  would  not 
gratify  your  ambition,  by  making  you  pope  by  force;  and 
therefore  have  you  said,  more  than  once,  you  would  trouble 
him  and  his  friends — and  you  have  kept  him  true  promise, 
for  of  all  his  wars  and  vexations,  he  may  only  thank  you. 
As  for  me,  his  poor  aunt  and  kinswoman,  what  trouble  you 
put  me  to  hy  this  new-found  doubt  God  knoweth,  to  whom 
I  commit  my  cause.  "-- 

On  Friday,  June  18,  1529,  "Wolsey  and  Campeggio 
opened  their  legatine  court  in  the  palace  at  Blackfriars. 
The  king  was  present  by  proxy.  Catherine,  attended  by 
her  counsel  of  four  bishops  -■''  and  a  great  train  of  ladies, 
appeared  in  person  and  with  due  respect  to  the  presiding 
Cardinals  solemnly  appealed  to  the  Pope  for  a  hearing, 
alleging  that  in  England,  where  there  was  no  one  to  take 
up  her  cause,  the  court  would  necessarily  decide  against 
her.-*  In  reply,  she  was  told  to  appear  again  on  the  fol- 
lowing Monday ;  in  the  meantime,  the  Cardinals  would  con- 
sider the  justice  of  her  appeal. 

Accordingly,  on  June  21,  the  king  and  queen  appeared 
in  person.    When  Henry's  name  was  called,  he  arose  and  to 

22.  Strickland,  p.  542.  Du  Boys,  p.  264,  cites  a  letter  of  Mendoza,  the 
Spanish  ambassador,  to  the  emperor,  dated  November  IS,  152S.  From  this 
letter  we  learn  how  Wolsey  browbeat  Campeggio  and  in  a  threatening  tone 
told  him  to  be  on  his  guard  that  what  lately  happened  in  Germany 
through  the  severity  of  a  certain  Cardinal  might  not  also  take  place  in 
England  through  another  Cardinal.     See  also  Hope,  pp.  52-57. 

23.  One  of  their  number  was  a  Franciscan,  Fr.  Henry  Standish,  bishop 
of  Asaph.     See  Parkinson  :  Antiquities  of  the  Eiujlixh  Franciscans,  p.  237. 

24.  For  the  original  account  of  these  proceedings,  together  with  a 
copy  of  the  queen's  appeal,  see  Pocock  :  Records  of  the  Reformation,  Vol.  I, 
pp.  216-222. 


112  FRANCISCANS  AND 

delude  the  judges  and  the  assembled  people  loudly  extolled 
the  virtues  of  his  royal  consort,  at  the  same  time  professing 
his  reluctance  to  part  from  her  were  it  not  for  the  scruples 
that  panged  his  "tender"  conscience.  Disgusted  at  this 
shameless  hypocrisy,  Catherine  asked  how,  if  he  now  spoke 
the  truth,  he  could  have  been  silent  these  twenty  years. 
When  Henry  replied  that  the  great  love  he  always  had  and 
still  retained  for  her,  had  till  now  sealed  his  lips,  the  queen 
became  indignant  and  in  trembling  accents  reiterated  her 
appeal  to  Rome.  But  the  judges  declared  that  her  appeal 
was  unjust  and  could  not  be  accepted.  On  hearing  this, 
Catherine  went  over  to  where  the  king  sat  and  falling  on 
her  knees  before  him,  made  a  heroic  effort  to  touch  his  heart. 
"Sir,"  she  said,  "I  beseech  you,  for  all  the  loves  there  hath 
been  between  us,  and  for  the  love  of  God,  let  me  have  some 
right  and  justice.  Take  of  me  some  pity  and  compassion, 
for  I  am  a  poor  stranger,  born  out  of  your  dominions;  I 
have  here  no  unprejudiced  counsellor,  and  I  flee  to  you  as 
to  the  head  of  justice  within  your  realm.  Alas !  alas ! 
wherein  have  I  offended  you  ?  I  take  God  and  all  the  world 
to  witness  that  I  have  been  to  you  a  true,  humble,  and 
obedient  wife,  even  conformable  to  your  will  and  pleasure. 
I  have  been  pleased  and  contented  with  all  things  wherein 
you  had  delight  and  dalliance ;  I  loved  all  those  you  loved, 
only  for  your  sake,  whether  they  were  my  friends  or  mine 
enemies.  This  twenty  years  have  I  been  your  true  wife, 
and  by  me  ye  have  had  divers  children,  although  it  hath 
pleased  God  to  call  them  out  of  the  world,  which  has  been  no 
fault  of  mine.  I  put  it  to  your  conscience  whether  I  came 
not  to  you  as  a  maid?  If  you  have  since  found  any  dis- 
honor in  my  conduct,  then  I  am  content  to  depart,  albeit  to 
my  great  shame  and  disparagement;  but  if  none  there  be, 
then  I  beseech  you,  thus  lowlily,  to  let  me  remain  in  my 
proper  state.  The  king  your  father  was  accounted  in  his 
day  a  second  Solomon  for  wisdom ;  and  my  father,  Ferdi- 
nand, was  esteemed  one  of  the  wisest  kings  that  had  ever 
reigned  in  Spain ;  both,  indeed,  were  excellent  princes,  full 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  113 

of  wisdom  and  royal  behavior.  Also,  as  me-seemeth,  they 
had  in  their  days  as  learned  and  judicious  counsellors  as  are 
at  present  in  this  realm,  who  then  thought  our  marriage 
good  and  lawful;  therefore  it  is  a  wonder  to  me  to  hear 
what  new  inventions  are  brought  up  against  me,  who  never 
meant  aught  but  honestly.  Ye  cause  me  to  stand  to  the 
judgment  of  this  new  court,  wherein  ye  do  me  much  wrong 
if  ye  intend  any  kind  of  cruelty;  for  ye  may  condemn  me 
for  lack  of  sufficient  answer,  since  your  subjects  cannot  be 
impartial  counsellors  for  me,  as  they  dare  not,  for  fear  of 
you,  disobey  your  will.  Therefore  most  humbly  do  I  require 
you,  in  the  way  of  charity  and  for  the  love  of  God,  who  is 
the  just  Judge  of  all,  to  spare  me  the  sentence  of  this  new 
court  until  I  be  advertised  what  way  my  friends  in  Spain 
may  advise  me  to  take ;  and  if  ye  will  not  extend  to  me  this 
favor,  your  pleasure  be  fulfilled,  and  to  God  I  commit  my 
cause."  Then  she  arose  bathed  in  tears  and  bowing  to  the 
king  left  the  court.  When  told  that  the  crier  at  the  king's 
bidding  was  calling  her  back,  she  said,  "I  hear  it  well 
enough ;  but  on — on,  go  you  on,  for  this  is  no  court  wherein 
I  can  have  justice.    Proceed,  therefore."-" 

Her  touching  appeal  had  made  a  deep  impression  on  all 
present.  This  the  king  noticed  and  with  seeming  emotion 
declared,  "Forasmuch  as  the  queen  is  gone  I  will  in  her 
absence  declare  unto  you  all,  m}^  lords,  she  hath  been  to  me 
as  true,  as  obedient,  and  as  conformable  a  wife  as  I  could  in 
my  fancy  wish  or  desire.  She  hath  all  the  virtuous  quali- 
ties that  a  woman  of  her  quality,  or  of  any  lower  rank, 
ought  to  possess."-*^  Arriving  at  Baynard's  Castle,  Cath- 
erine said  to  her  council,  ' '  This  day,  for  the  first  time,  lest 
I  hurt  my  cause,  I  have  not  obeyed  my  lord  the  king;  but 
the  next  time  I  meet  him,  I  will  crave  his  pardon  on  my 
knees.  "^^    Summoned  again  on  June  25  and  28,  she  refused 

25.  Strickland,  p.  544,  quoting  Cavendish  ;  see  also  Hope,  p.  128,  and 
Du  Boys,  p.  327    (footnote  2). 

26.  Hope,  p.  131.  For  a  dramatic  and  historically  accurate  version 
of  this  trial  scene  at  Blackfrlars,  see  Shakespeare's  King  Henry  the  Eighth, 
Act  II,  Scene  IV. 

27.  Sander,  p.  37. 


114  FRANCISCANS  AND 

to  appear.     Instead,  her  written  appeal  to  the  Pope  was 
solemnly  read  in  court. 

Shortly  after  these  occurrences,  Wolsey  and  Campeggio 
visited  Queen  Catherine  in  the  palace  of  Bridewell  and 
begged  her  in  the  king's  name  to  consent  to  a  divorce.  Tak- 
ing the  Cardinals  aside,  she  remained  for  some  time  in 
earnest  conversation  with  them.  What  she  told  them  was 
never  made  known.  It  is  probable  that  she  again  reproached 
Wolsey  for  having  let  matters  come  to  this  pass.^^  Certain 
it  is,  both  Cardinals  were  after  this  interview  more  favor- 
ably disposed  toward  her.  The  next  October,  when  the 
legatine  court  resumed  its  sittings,  Henry 's  council  pressed 
the  legates  to  give  judgment.  Then  to  the  great  disappoint- 
ment of  the  king,  Campeggio  declared  that  the  Pope  had 
found  Catherine's  appeal  justified  and  had  already  revoked 
her  cause  to  Rome.  With  this  the  court  was  dissolved  and 
Campeggio  soon  after  left  England. 

Though  incensed  at  this  turn  of  affairs,  Henry  for  a  time 
feigned  kindlier  feelings  toward  Catherine.  Indeed,  when 
told  that  Rome  would  likely  decide  against  him,  he  was 
even  on  the  point  of  dropping  the  matter  entirely  and  of 
reinstating  the  queen  in  her  rights."^  But  he  had  already 
gone  too  far  and  egged  on  by  Anne,  again  began  to  treat 
the  queen  with  cruel  contempt.  Her  sufferings  now  became 
wellnigh  unbearable.  In  the  autumn  of  1530,  Chapuys 
wrote  to  the  Emperor,  "The  queen's  ailment  continues  as 
bad  or  worse  than  ever.  The  king  absents  himself  from  her 
as  much  as  possible,  and  is  always  here  (at  London)  with 
the  lady  (Anne),  whilst  the  queen  is  at  Richmond.  He  has 
never  been  so  long  without  visiting  her  as  now,  but  states, 
in  excuse,  that  a  death  from  the  plague  has  taken  place  near 
her  residence.  He  has  resumed  his  attempts  to  persuade 
her  to  become  a  nun  ;  this  is,  however,  only  lost  time,  for  the 
queen  will  never  take  such  a  step.  The  continual  uneasi- 
ness which  she  endures  causes  her  to  entreat  your  majesty, 

28.  Du  Boys,  346. 

29.  Ibidem,  p.  410,  on  the  authority  of  Cardinal  Pole. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  115 

as  well  in  my  letters  as  yours,  that  her  suit  be  brought  to  a 
final  conclusion. '  '^° 

During  the  ensuing  Christmas  festivities  which  Henry 
attended  with  Catherine  at  Greenwich,  he  again  asked  her 
to  revoke  her  appeal  to  Rome  and  to  submit  the  affair  to 
four  English  prelates  or  secular  lawyers.  On  her  refusal, 
the  king  broke  up  the  festive  gathering  and  withdrew  to 
Whitehall.  Her  subsequent  refusal  to  acknowledge  the 
king's  supremacy  in  spiritual  matters  brought  the  affair  to 
a  crisis.^^  At  Whitsuntide,  1531,  a  royal  deputation  again 
visited  Catherine  and  requested  her  to  submit  the  question 
to  four  English  prelates  and  four  nobles,  since  the  king  suf- 
fered great  pangs  of  conscience.  ' '  God  grant  my  husband, ' ' 
replied  the  queen,  ' '  a  quiet  conscience ;  but  tell  him  I  am  his 
lawful  wife,  married  to  him  by  the  power  of  Holy  Church. 
The  court  of  Rome  has  taken  the  matter  in  hand :  when  it 
speaks  I  will  submit.  "^^  After  the  festival  of  Trinity, 
Henry  and  Catherine  set  out  together  for  Windsor.  The 
cruel  monarch  was  by  this  time  determined  to  take  the  fatal 
step.  Accordingly,  soon  after  their  arrival,  he  left  the  royal 
palace  and  proceeded  on  a  hunting  tour  with  Anne  Boleyn. 
We  can  readily  imagine  the  bitter  anguish  that  filled  the 
soul  of  Catherine.  But  her  grief  knew  no  bounds,  when 
about  the  middle  of  August  she  received  a  message  from  the 
king  telling  her  that  she  and  her  daughter  Mary  were  to 
leave  Windsor  before  his  return.  "Go  where  I  may,"  the 
noble  queen  replied,  "I  am  his  wife  and  for  him  I  pray." 
In  October,  the  king's  envoys  once  more  entreated  Catherine 
on  their  knees  to  submit  to  a  decision  of  English  bishops. 
Thereupon,  Catherine,  too,  fell  on  her  knees  and  begged  the 
envoys  to  use  their  influence  with  the  king  in  her  behalf. 
At  first,  she  refused  to  go  to  the  More  in  Hertfordshire,  as 
Henry  commanded,  because  the  place  was  unhealthful. 
Finally,  declining  to  choose  a  place  of  her  own  liking,  she 

30.  Strickland,  p.  549. 

31.  Hope,   p.  229. 

32.  Du  Boys,  p.  420. 


116  FRANCISCANS  AND 

humbly  obeyed  his  command,  offering  a  silent  prayer  for 
him  whom  she  was  never  to  see  again  in  this  life.^^ 

Far  from  allowing  a  sullen  and  vindictive  demeanor  to 
widen  the  breach  between  herself  and  the  faithless  king, 
Catherine  rather  tried  to  forget  her  injuries  and  to  soften 
the  heart  of  Henry.  Shortly  after  her  arrival  at  the  More, 
on  New  Year's  Day,  1532,  she  sent  him  a  golden  cup  in 
token  of  her  undying  love  and  esteem;  but  the  uncivil 
wretch,  though  praising  its  beauty,  returned  the  gift,  say- 
ing he  could  accept  none  from  her;  much  less  did  he  send 
her  and  her  ladies  the  customary  New  Year's  present,  and 
he  even  went  so  far  as  to  forbid  his  courtiers  to  do  so.^* 
About  this  time,  Catherine  wrote  to  her  daughter  Mary, 
who  was  residing  at  Greenwich.  In  this  letter,  the  care- 
worn queen  does  not  complain  of  her  wrongs.  She  merely 
says  that  the  absence  of  the  king  and  of  her  daughter 
troubles  her;  that  she  trusts  in  God,  however,  who  will 
"shortly  turn  all  to  come  with  good  effect."  Then  she 
urges  her  beloved  child  to  be  as  assiduous  in  the  study  of 
Latin  under  her  new  tutor,  Dr.  Fetherstone,  as  she  had  been 
under  her  mother's  direction.^^ 

Soon  after  her  repudiation,  Catherine  informed  the  Pope 
of  Henry 's  measures  against  her.  His  Holiness,  in  a  private 
letter,  kindly  but  earnestly  admonished  the  king  to  reinstate 
his  lawful  wife  and  to  dismiss  Anne,  till  Rome  had  pro- 
nounced sentence.  The  letter  dated  January  25,  1532,  was 
sent  to  Catherine  who,  however,  did  not  venture  to  forward 
it  to  Henry  until  the  following  May.^®  The  latter  entirely 
ignoring  the  Pope's  fatherly  appeal,  continued  to  retain 
Anne  in  the  queen 's  apartments,  and,  as  if  to  defy  the  Holy 
See,  had  Catherine  removed  to  Buckden  (Bugden),  ^^  still 

33.  Strickland,  p.  551 ;  see  also  Hope,  pp.  234  seq. 

34.  Hope,  p.   237. 

35.  Stricklaud,  p.  551 ;  the  author  brings  the  letter  together  with  an 
autograph  signature  of  the  queen.  Dr.  Fetherstone  was  later  martyred 
for  the  faith,  and  he  is  now  numbered  among  the  Blessed. 

36.  Pocock,  Vol.  II,  pp.  166  seq. ;  Hope,  pp.  251  seq. 

37.  According  to  Strickland,  p.  556,  Buckden  was  a  palace  four  miles 
distant  from  Huntingdon.  It  is  not  noticed  by  Timbs  in  his  Abbeys 
,  ...  of  England  and  Wales,  probably  because  it  was  of  Inferior  rank. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  117 

farther  distant  from  court.  This  house,  where  the  queen 
lived  for  some  months,  belonged  to  Longland,  Bishop  of 
Lincoln,  who  had  formerly  been  Henry 's  confessor,  and  who 
was  now  an  ardent  promotor  of  his  cause.  Naturally,  this 
circumstance  nettled  Catherine,  while  the  unwholesome 
climate  greatly  impaired  her  health. 

The  next  September,  Anne  was  created  Marchioness  of 
Pembroke,  and  a  month  later  she  accompanied  the  king  on 
a  visit  to  the  French  monarch  at  Calais.  Not  satisfied  with 
this  public  insult  to  Catherine,  Henry  was  rude  enough  to 
send  a  messenger  for  her  jewels,  that  Anne  might  wear  them 
for  the  visit.  The  noble  queen  obeyed,  though  with  reluc- 
tance, surmising,  perhaps,  that  she  would  never  see  them 
again.^^ 

It  must  have  cheered  the  troubled  heart  of  Catherine  to 
know  that,  thanks  to  the  activity  of  the  Franciscans  in  her 
behalf,  the  people  sympathized  with  her.  If  in  brighter 
days  she  had  had  a  high  regard  for  these  zealous  friars,  how 
much  greater  was  her  esteem  now,  when  they  proved  the 
most  fearless  champions  of  her  rights  as  wife  and  queen. 

Equally  staunch  in  her  defense  was  Bl.  Thomas  More 
and  the  Earl  of  Shrewsbury,  who  had  charge  of  the  queen's 
crown,  and  openly  declared  that  he  would  never  consent  to 
have  any  other  than  Catherine  wear  it.  Sir  Henry  Guild- 
ford, the  Controller,  and  many  other  state  officials  spoke 
publicly  in  favor  of  the  queen.  The  same  is  true  of  Bl.  John 
Fisher  and  even  of  Reginald  Pole,  the  king 's  cousin.  Thus, 
in  the  course  of  time,  Anne  Boleyn  became  an  object  of 
popular  contempt.  In  derision  the  people  nicknamed  her 
Nan  Bullen,  and  on  several  occasions  threatened  to  take  her 
life.  Once  she  would  surely  have  met  a  violent  death  at 
their  hands  had  she  not  received  a  timely  warning  and  made 
good  her  escape.^^  According  to  Ludovico  Falier,  a  Vene- 
tian visiting  England  at  the  time,  general  discontent  with 
the  king's  unjust  policy  ran  so  high  that,  could  they  have 

38.  Hope,  pp.  256,  287. 
89.  Ibidem,  pp.  261  eeq. 


118  FRANCISCANS  AND 

found  a  leader,  the  people  would  have  risen  in  rebellion  and 
demanded  justice  for  the  queen  they  loved.  On  December 
16,  1533,  Chapuys  wrote  to  the  Emperor:  "You  can  not 
imagine  the  grief  of  all  the  people  at  this  abominable  gov- 
ernment. They  are  so  transported  with  indignation  at 
what  passes  that  they  complain  that  your  Majesty  takes  no 
step  in  it,  and  I  am  told  by  many  respectable  people,  that 
they  would  be  glad  to  see  a  fleet  come  hither  in  your  name, 
to  raise  the  people ;  and  if  they  had  any  chief  among  them- 
selves, w^ho  dared  raise  his  head,  they  would  require  no 
more."*" 

Nothing,  however,  was  farther  from  the  mind  of  Cath- 
erine than  violent  measures  against  the  king.  But  for  the 
rights  of  her  daughter,  which  she  felt  in  conscience  bound 
to  defend,  the  secluded  and  simple  life  at  Buckden  would 
have  been  quite  to  her  fancy.  As  it  w^as,  she  did  not  lose 
courage,  but  redoubled  her  prayers  and  mortifications,  and 
daily  implored  the  Author  of  light  to  guide  the  wayward 
king.  Her  trials,  however,  had  only  begun ;  greater  suffer- 
ings were  in  store  for  her.  On  April  23,  1533,  she  received 
a  message  from  the  king,  informing  her  of  his  recent  nup- 
tials with  Anne  and  forbidding  her  thenceforth  to  iLse  the 
title  of  queen.  At  the  same  time,  he  commanded  that  all 
correspondence  between  herself  and  Princess  Mary  must 
cease ;  he  knew  how  fond  mother  and  daughter  w^ere  of  each 
other,  and  he  hoped  by  this  means  to  break  the  spirit  of 
both."  On  May  10,  Cranmer,  the  newly  appointed  arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  convened  an  ecclesiastical  court  at 
Dunstable,*-  six  miles  from  Ampthill,  where  Catherine  was 
then  residing.  Though  repeatedly  summoned  to  appear  be- 
fore the  tribunal,  she  firmly  refused,  and  on  May  23,  she 
was  declared  contumacious.  She  lay  sick  on  her  pallet 
when,  soon  after.  Lord  Mountjoy  and  his  coadjutors  form- 

40.  Stone,  pp.  47,  64. 

41.  Hope,  p.  307. 

42.  Cranmer  held  this  court  in  direct  opposition  to  Pope  Clement  VII, 
who  on  January  5,  1531,  issued  a  Bull  of  Inhibition,  strictly  forbidding  all 
courts  whatever  to  pronounce  sentence  on  the  question  of  the  divorce.  For 
a  copy  of  this  Bull  see  Dodd,  p.  286. 


THE  PKOTESTANT  REVOLUTION  119 

ally  announced  to  her  the  court's  decision  in  favor  of  the 
king's  new  marriage.  Calmly,  but  steadfastly,  Catherine 
objected  to  being  styled  Princess-Dowager  of  Wales,  affirm- 
ing that  she  was  the  queen  and  the  lawful  wife  of  the  king. 
Bribes  and  threats  were  unavailing.  The  matter  involved 
the  honor  and  right  of  her  daughter,  which  she  would  de- 
fend at  all  hazards.  More  than  that,  the  salvation  of  her 
own  soul  was  at  stake,  and  hence  ' '  neither  for  her  daughter, 
her  servants,  her  possessions  or  any  worldly  adversity,  or 
the  king's  displeasure,  that  might  ensue,  would  she  yield 
in  this  cause,"  Next  day,  demanding  the  written  account 
of  the  proceedings,  she  took  her  pen  and  scratched  the  words 
Princess  Dowager  wherever  they  occurred.*^  On  May  28, 
Cranmer  held  court  at  Lambeth  and,  to  the  great  scandal  of 
all  England,  publicly  declared  that  the  king  had  validly 
married  Anne,  who  was,  therefore,  to  be  held  and  treated 
as  queen  of  England.  On  May  29,  she  left  for  Greenwich 
in  the  queen 's  barge  for  Westminster,  where  on  the  follow- 
ing Sunday  her  coronation  took  place. 

Though  wantonly  outraged  in  her  holiest  rights  and 
tenderest  sensibilities,  Catherine  obeyed  the  command  of 
her  brutal  and  shameless  lord  and  returned  to  her  miserable 
abode  in  Buckden,  The  people,  who  had  witnessed  the 
events  of  the  preceding  weeks  with  growing  disgust  and 
indignation,  seized  the  occasion  of  her  return  to  Buckden 
for  public  demonstrations  of  loyalty  to  her.  Though  they 
had  been  forbidden  to  style  her  queen,  enthusiastic  cries  of 
"Long  live  Queen  Catherine"  met  her  at  every  turn.  With 
tears  the  people  begged  her  to  raise  the  standard  of  revolt, 
declaring  they  would  lay  down  their  lives  for  her.^*  Cath- 
erine, however,  though  touched  at  this  unfeigned  loyalty, 
recoiled  at  the  mere  thought  of  profiting  by  it.  Henceforth, 
it  seems,  the  sole  object  of  her  anxiety  was  the  welfare  of 
her  daughter,  whom  Henry  was  heaping  with  indignities 

43.  Strickland,  p.  555,  who  adds  that  this  document  with  the  altera- 
tions made  by  the  queen  Is  still  extant  in  the  national  archives  of 
England. 

44.  Stone,  p.  56. 


120  FRANCISCANS  AND 

on  her  account.  She  knew  to  what  hardships  and  dangers 
her  dear  child  was  exposed  and  secretly  addressed  a  letter 
to  her,  which  read  in  part : 

Daughter,  I  heard  such  things  to-day,  that  I  do  perceive,  if  it 
is  true,  the  time  is  come  that  Almighty  God  will  prove  you;  and 
I  am  very  glad  for  it  for  I  trust  He  doth  handle  you  with  good 
love.  I  beseech  you,  agree  to  His  pleasure  with  a  merry  heart; 
and  be  sure,  that  without  fail.  He  will  not  suffer  you  to  perish, 
if  you  beware  to  offend  Him.  I  pray  you,  good  daughter,  to  offer 
yourself  to  Him.  If  any  pangs  (of  conscienee)  come  to  you,  shrive 
yourself;  first  make  you  clean,  take  heed  of  His  commandments, 
and  keep  them  as  near  as  He  will  give  you  grace  to  do,  for  then  are 
you  sure  armed.  And  if  this  lady  do  come  to  you,  as  it  is  spoken, 
if  she  do  bring  you  a  letter  from  the  King,  I  am  sure,  in  the  self- 
same letter,  you  shall  be  commanded  what  you  shall  do.  Answer 
you  with  few  words,  obeying  the  King  your  father  in  everything, 
save  that  you  will  not  offend  God,  and  lose  your  own  soul;  and  go 
not  further  with  learning  and  disputation  in  the  matter.  And 
wheresoever  and  in  whatsoever  company  you  shall  come  (obey), 
the  King's  commandments But  one  thing  especially  I  de- 
sire you,  for  the  love  you  owe  to  God,  and  unto  me,  to  keep  your 
heart  with  a  chaste  mind,  and  your  body  from  all  ill  and  wanton 
company I  pray  you  recommend  me  unto  my  good  lady  Salis- 
bury, and  pray  her  to  have  a  good  heart,  for  we  never  come  to  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  but  by  troubles. 45 

According  to  Harpsfield,  who  lived  at  the  time,  Cath- 
erine in  some  degree  regained  her  cheerfulness  and  peace 
of  mind  at  Buckden.  She  found  delight  in  the  simple  man- 
ners of  the  country  people  who  frequently  visited  her.  Like 
a  true  child  of  St.  Francis,  she  loved  the  poor  and,  as  long 
as  circumstances  alloAved,  she  assisted  them  in  their  needs. 
The  Franciscans  of  the  neighboring  friaries  likewise  came 
to  pay  their  respects  to  her  *^  whose  cause  they  had  openly 
espoused.  From  them  perhaps  she  heard  that  FF.  Peyto 
and  Elstow  had  finally  been  banished  and  were  now  living 
in  exile,  still  true  to  her  cause.  Toward  Anne  she  bore  no 
resentment,  but  rather  pitied  her.    One  day,  a  gentlewoman 

45.  Ibidem,  p.  60. 

46.  Camm :  Lives  of  the  English  Martyrs,  Vol.  I,  p.  277. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  121 

of  her  household  began  to  heap  curses  on  the  name  of  Anne. 
The  queen  who  had  been  weeping,  quickly  dried  her  tears 
and  said  earnestly,  ' '  Hold  your  peace  !  Curse  not — curse 
her  not,  but  rather  pray  for  her ;  for  even  now  is  the  time 
fast  coming  when  you  should  have  reason  to  pity  her  and 
lament  her  case. "*^  During  the  court's  proceedings  against 
Elizabeth  Barton  and  her  adherents,  Catherine's  prudence 
completely  baffled  the  attempts  of  her  enemies  to  draw  her 
loyalty  to  Henry  in  question.  ' '  It  seems, ' '  writes  Chapuys, 
"as  if  God  inspires  the  queen,  on  all  occasions,  to  conduct 
herself  well,  and  to  avoid  all  inconveniences  and  suspicions ; 
for  the  Nun  had  been  urgent,  at  divers  times,  to  speak  with 
her,  and  console  her  in  her  great  affliction,  but  the  queen 
would  never  see  her."*'^  Gloomy  forebodings  must  have 
preyed  on  her  heart,  however,  when  she  learned  that  the 
Holy  Maid  and  her  party  had  been  executed,  and  that  two 
Franciscans,  FF.  Rich  and  Risby,  had  suffered  inhuman 
torture  and  death  in  defence  of  i^apal  supremacy. 

Of  the  queen's  life  at  Buckden  we  find  an  interesting 
account  in  Ilarpsfield.  "Queen  Catherine,"  he  writes, 
"spent  her  solitary  life  in  much  prayer,  great  alms  and 
abstinence ;  and  when  she  was  not  this  way  occupied,  then 
was  she  and  her  gentlewomen  working  with  their  own  hands 
something  wrought  in  needlework,  costly  and  artificially, 
which  she  intended,  to  the  honor  of  God,  to  bestow  on  some 
of  the  churches.  There  was  in  the  said  house  of  Bugden  a 
chamber  with  a  window  that  had  a  prospect  into  the  chapel, 
out  of  the  which  she  might  hear  divine  sei*vice.  In  this 
chamber  she  enclosed  herself,  sequestered  from  all  other 
company,  a  great  part  of  the  night  and  day,  and  upon  her 
knees  used  to  pray  at  the  same  window,  leaning  upon  the 
stones  of  the  same.  There  were  some  of  her  gentlewomen 
who  curiously  marked  all  her  doings,  and  reported  that 
oftentimes  they  found  the  said  stones,  where  her  head  had 
reclined,  wet  as  though  a  shower  had  rained  upon  them. 
It  was  credibly  thought  that,  in  the  time  of  prayer,  she  re- 

47.  Strickland,  p.  556.  48.  Stone,  p.  24. 


122  FRANCISCANS  AND 

moved  the  cushions  that  ordinarily  lay  in  the  window,  and 
that  the  said  stones  were  imbrvied  with  the  tears  of  her 
devout  eyes  when  she  prayed  for  strength  to  subdue  the 
agonies  of  wronged  affections."*^ 

The  following  spring,  on  March  23,  1534,  Pope  Clement 
VII  officially  approved  the  decision  of  the  Roman  court, 
pronouncing  Catherine's  marriage  with  Henry  valid  and 
indissoluble.^"  Meanwhile,  the  schism  was  fast  maturing. 
Before  the  Pope 's  final  decision  reached  the  ears  of  the  king, 
his  pliant  parliament,  wholly  controlled  by  Cromwell,  had 
passed  bills  that  practically  severed  England  from  Catholic 
unity  and  demanded  of  all  English  subjects  under  penalty 
of  misprision  of  treason  a  solemn  oath  of  allegiance  to  the 
spiritual  supremacy  of  the  king.^^  The  fearless  and  out- 
spoken opposition  of  the  Franciscans,  and  especially  the 
Pope's  subsequent  threat  of  excommunication,  roused  bitter 
hatred  in  Henry's  heart  against  the  queen,  whom  he  sup- 
posed the  cause  of  all  these  vexations.  It  is  true,  as  Fran- 
ciscan Tertiary,  Catherine  naturally  loved  the  friars.  In 
fact  she  was  in  communication  with  them,  and  she  had  been 
frequently  advised  by  Bl.  John  Forest.  Never,  however, 
would  she  have  consented  to  take  public  reprisals  on  the 
king ;  much  less  would  the  friars  have  advised  such  a  course 
of  action.  The  cross  was  her  portion,  and  encouraged  by 
the  words  and  examples  of  her  brethren  in  Christ,  she 
gloried  in  it.  Regarding  the  excommunication  with  which 
the  Pope  threatened  the  refractory  king,  we  know  for  cer- 
tain that  Catherine  had  done  all  in  her  power  to  avert  the 
blow,  so  that  Cardinal  Pole  could  write,  "I  understand  to- 
da.y  that  if  the  queen  had  not  interfered,  the  anathema 
would  have  already  gone  out  against  the  king.  "^^ 

In  May,  Lee  and  Tunstal  received  orders  to  visit  Cath- 
erine. Laying  before  her  six  articles,  they  tried  to  show 
why  she  ought  to  give  up  the  title  of  queen.    When,  how- 

49.  See   Strickland,   p.  556,  quoting  Harpsfleld. 

50.  For  a  copy  of  this  Bull  see  Dodd,  p.  294. 

51.  See  Lingard,  p.  11. 

52.  Strickland,  p.  559. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  123 

ever,  they  adduced  as  reason  the  fact  that  Anne  by  the  re- 
cent birth  of  Elizabeth  had  now  a  right  to  be  called  queen, 
Catherine's  patience  for  a  moment  failed  her,  and  facing 
her  tormentors  with  defiant  dignity  she  solemnly  vowed 
never  to  relinquish  the  title  of  queen  as  long  as  she  lived, 
fearlessly  adding  that  she  was  the  king's  wife  and  not  his 
subject  and  therefore  not  liable  to  his  acts  of  parliament. 
"Henry's  repudiated  wife,"  Lingard  remarks,  "was  the 
only  person  who  could  defy  him  with  impunity:  she  had 
lost  his  love,  but  never  forfeited  his  esteem. '  ''^ 

The  uncompromising  firmness  with  which  the  queen 
maintained  her  rights,  gradually  drove  Henry  and  his  party 
on  to  severer  measures  against  her.  Early  in  1534,  the 
Duke  of  Suffolk  received  orders  for  her  removal  to  Somer- 
sham  in  the  Isle  of  Ely,  "a  place  surrounded  with  water 
and  marshes,  the  most  pestilential  spot  in  England."  At 
this  juncture,  Chapuys  wrote  to  the  Emperor : 

The  Duke  of  Suffolk,  as  I  am  informed  by  his  wife's  mother, 
confessed  on  the  Sacrament,  and  wished  some  mischief  might  hap- 
pen to  him  to  excuse  himself  from  the  journey.  The  King,  at  the 
solicitation  of  the  Lady,  whom  he  dares  not  contradict,  has  deter- 
mined to  place  the  Queen  in  the  said  house,  either  to  get  rid  of 
her,  or  to  make  sure  of  her,  as  the  house  is  strong;  and  besides,  it 
is  seven  miles  from  another  house,  situated  in  a  lake,  which  one 
can  not  approach  within  six  miles,  except  on  one  side;  and  the 
King  and  the  Lady  have  agreed  to  seek  all  possible  occasions  to 
shut  up  the  Queen  within  the  said  island,  and  failing  all  other  pre- 
texts to  accuse  her  of  being  insane. 

Catherine  knew  what  was  in  store  for  her  and  refused 
to  leave  Buckden.  She  told  the  king's  commissioners  that, 
to  remove  her,  they  would  have  to  break  open  the  doors  and 
take  her  by  force.  Not  daring  to  do  this  for  fear  of  the 
people,  the  commissioners  departed.^*  When  the  king  heard 
of  their  failure,  he  was  furious  and  began  to  heap  new  in- 
sults and  indignities  on  the  helpless  queen.  She  was  robbed 
of  her  royal  income  and  forced  to  content  herself  with  what 

53.  Lingard,  Vol.  IV,  p.  231.  54.  Stone,  p.  66. 


124  FRANCISCANS  AND 

had  been  allowed  her  as  Princess-Dowager.  Servants  and 
dependents,  who  still  insisted  on  her  royal  title,  were  sum- 
marily dismissed  and  replaced  by  such  as  were  willing  to 
embitter  her  life,  as  the  king  ordered.  Her  house  at  Buck- 
den  practically  became  a  prison  with  Sir  Edmund  Beding- 
field  as  jailer,  whose  duty  it  was  to  observe  the  queen  closely 
and  to  report  regularly  to  headquarters  regarding  her  con- 
duct. Henry  hoped  to  find  something  that  would  justify 
legal  proceedings  against  her.^^  From  Chapuys's  letter  we 
learn  how  anxiously  the  godless  king  was  waiting  for  her 
death.  In  fact,  it  seems  that  he  even  took  direct  measures 
to  hasten  her  end.  For  the  imperial  ambassador  writes: 
"He  (Henry)  has  great  hope  in  the  queen's  death.  He 
lately  told  the  French  ambassador,  that  she  could  not  live 
long,  as  she  was  dropsical,  an  illness  she  was  never  subject 
to  before.  It  is  to  be  feared  something  has  been  done  to 
bring  it  on."  Catherine,  it  seems,  knew  all  this  and  even 
feared  she  would  be  poisoned.  "The  queen  has  not  been 
out  of  her  room,"  again  writes  Chapuys,  "since  the  Duke 
of  Suffolk  was  with  her,  except  to  hear  Mass  in  the  gallery. 
She  will  not  eat  or  drink  what  the  new  servants  provide. 
The  little  she  eats,  in  her  anguish,  is  prepared  by  her  cham- 
berwomen,  and  her  room  is  used  as  her  kitchen.  She  is  very 
badly  lodged ;  she  desires  me  to  write  to  you  about  it. '  '^"^ 

To  judge  from  Henry's  inhuman  proceedings  against 
others  who  in  days  gone  by  had  enjoyed  his  favor  and  pro- 
tection, it  is  not  unlikely  that  to  satisfy  Anne  he  would  in 
the  end  have  resorted  to  the  murder  of  Catherine,  had  not, 
in  the  fall  of  1534,  another  opportunity  presented  itself  of 
sating  his  vengeance  on  her.  The  queen  had  spent  almost 
two  years  at  Buckden,  and  her  health  had  suffered  greatly. 
Probably  dreading  the  coming  winter,  she  asked  to  be  re- 
moved to  a  milder  and  drier  place  near  the  Metropolis. 
Accordingly,  the  relentless  king  commissioned  the  Duke  of 
Suffolk  to  convey  her  to  Fotheringay  castle  on  the  river 

5.5.  Lingard,  Vol.  V,  p.  7 ;  Strickland,  p.  560;  Stone,  p.  52. 
56.   stone,  p.  68. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  .  125 

Nen  in  Northamptonshire."  Besides  being  notorious  for  its 
bad  air,  this  place  was  especially  disagreeable  to  Catherine, 
because  it  belonged  to  the  dower  settled  on  her  by  Prince 
Arthur.  Moreover,  by  going  there  she  would  in  some  way 
have  compromised  her  cause.  Accordingly,  she  again  ob- 
jected, so  that  the  duke  was  at  a  loss  how  to  proceed,  and 
thought  there  was  no  other  remedy  than  to  convey  her  by 
force  to  Somersame.  She  remained,  therefore,  at  Buckden 
till  the  end  of  1534;  when  finally  she  consented  to  take  up 
her  abode,  according  to  the  king's  command,  at  Kimbolton 
castle,  some  ten  miles  distant  from  Buckden.^® 

Early  in  January,  1535,  Catherine  arrived  there.  When 
one  remembers  the  precarious  state  of  her  health  and  the 
many  discomforts  a  journey  over  an  open  country  in  the 
depth  of  winter  entailed  in  those  days,  one  may  readily 
imagine  what  the  outcast  queen  suffered,  and  what  bitter 
anguish  wrung  her  heart  when  at  last  she  found  herself 
imprisoned  within  the  gloomy  castle  walls.  Kimbolton  was 
a  wet  and  unwholesome  place;  hence  the  queen's  malady, 
which  worry  and  privation  had  brought  on  at  Buckden, 
soon  became  desperate. 

As  widow  of  Prince  Arthur,  she  had  a  right  to  an  an- 
nuity of  5,000  pounds  sterling.  But  Henry  maliciously 
deprived  her  of  this  income  and  allowed  her  barely  sufficient 
means  to  maintain  a  scanty  household.  She  was  again 
placed  in  the  custody  of  Sir  Edmund  Bedingfield,  who  more 
than  once  informed  his  roj-al  master  that  Catherine's  house- 
hold was  utterly  devoid  of  money.  How  poor,  in  fact,  she 
was,  may  be  seen  from  her  last  will,  in  which  mention  is 
made  of  a  new  gown  she  had  obtained  on  trust.^" 

The  unfortunate  queen  had  been  residing  at  Kimbolton 
only  a  short  time,  when  the  news  reached  her  that  Princess 
Mary  was  dangerously  ill.''"    Likewise  informed  that  Henry 

57.  In  this  castle,  about  fifty  years  later,  another  saintly  queen,  Mary 
Stuart  of  Scotland,  spent  the  last  months  previous  to  her  execution. 

58.  Stricltiand,   pp.   558-502. 

59.  Du  Boys,  p.  504  ;  Strickland,  pp.  570  seq. 

60.  Princess  Mary  had  been  banished  from  court,  because  she  per- 
sisted in  the  title  of   royalty  and  steadfastly   refused  to   relinquish   it   in 


126.  FRANCISCANS  AND 

had  permitted  her  physician  and  apothecary  to  attend  the 
Princess,  Catherine  took  heart  and  humbly  petitioned  the 
king  to  allow  her  to  nurse  and  comfort  their  ailing  daughter. 
But  the  heartless  tyrant,  suspecting  a  plot  to  get  Mary  out 
of  the  country,  refused  the  request  of  his  loyal  queen.  He 
promised,  however,  to  place  the  princess  near  her  mother, 
provided  the  two  would  not  meet.  Catherine's  subsequent 
letter  of  gratitude  to  Cromwell  is  interesting,  inasmuch  as 
it  shows  her  mental  and  physical  condition  at  this  time. 

My  good  friend,  you  have  laid  me  under  great  obligation  by  the 
trouble  you  have  taken  in  speaking  to  the  king,  my  lord,  about  the 
coming  of  my  daughter  to  me.  I  hope  God  will  reward  you,  as  you 
know  it  is  out  of  my  power  to  give  you  anything  but  my  goodwill.  As 
to  the  answer  given  you  ...  I  beg  you  will  give  him  (the  king) 
my  hearty  thanks  for  the  good  he  does  to  his  daughter  and  mine,  and 
for  the  peace  of  mind  he  has  given  me.  You  may  assure  him,  that 
if  she  were  but  a  mile  from  me  I  would  not  see  her,  because  the  time 
does  not  permit  me  to  go  visiting,  and  if  I  wished  it,  I  have  not  the 
means  ...  I  have  heard  that  he  had  some  suspicion  of  her 
security — a  thing  so  unreasonable  that  I  cannot  believe  it  entered 
his  heart,  nor  do  I  think  he  has  so  little  confidence  in  me.  If  such 
a  thing  be  assumed,  I  beg  you  to  tell  his  majesty,  it  is  my  fixed 
determination  to  die  in  this  kingdom,  and  I  offer  my  person  as  security 
that  if  such  a  thing  be  attempted,  he  may  do  justice  upon  me  as  the 
most  traitorous  woman  that  ever  was  born.ei 

Neither  reasons  nor  petitions  could  prevail  over  the  pride 
and  obstinacy  of  Henry.  He  was  determined  once  for  all 
that  mother  and  daughter  should  never  meet  again  in  this 
life.  Even  Chapuys,  whom  for  political  reasons  the  king 
was  forced  to  treat  with  due  deference,  failed  to  move  his 
heart  of  steel.  Against  all  the  arguments  of  the  Spanish 
ambassador  he  objected  "that  there  was  no  occasion  to  con- 
fide Mary  to  her  mother's  hands,  for  it  was  Catherine  who 
had  put  it  into  her  head  to  show  such  obstinacy  and  dis- 
obedience. "'^- 

Anguish  and  fear  distracted  the  soul  of  Catherine  on 

favor  of  Elizabeth,  born  to  Henry  by  Anne  Boleyn.  See  Lingarrt,  Vol.  V,  p. 
29   (footnote  2). 

61.  Stone,  pp.  78  seq. 

62.  Ibidem,  p.  SO. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  127 

hearing  into  what  confusion  the  king  s  profligacy  and  per- 
verseness  was  plunging  the  country.  When  those  of  her 
household  w^ho  sympathized  with  Henry's  godless  policy, 
openly  accused  their  royal  mistress  of  being  the  cause  of 
all  this  misfortune,  the  hapless  queen,  weakened  in  mind  by 
bodily  suffering  and  deprived  of  right-minded  counselors, 
seems,  indeed,  to  have  been  troubled  in  conscience  as  to 
whether  her  mode  of  action  could  be  justified  before  God. 
Many  a  time,  no  doubt,  she  thought  of  the  faithful  Fran- 
ciscan friars,  from  whom  in  days  gone  by  she  had  so  often 
obtained  advice  and  consolation.  How  fearlessly  they  had 
defended  her  cause  and  the  rights  of  the  Pope ;  how  terribly 
they  had  already  been  visited  by  the  king 's  anger  and  ven- 
geance. Surely,  their  attitude  toward  the  king 's  policy  was 
a  model  on  which  she  might  safely  fashion  her  own.  These 
reflections  accomj^anied  by  ceaseless  prayer,  reassured  her 
and  buoyed  up  her  drooping  spirits. 

About  this  time,  the  unfortunate  queen  learned  to  her 
dismay  that  Fr.  John  Forest,  her  former  confessor  and 
spiritual  adviser,  had  been  imprisoned  in  Newgate,  and  that 
he  would  soon  be  led  to  execution.  Despite  the  danger  of 
having  her  letter  intercepted  and  thus  bringing  new  suffer- 
ings on  herself  as  well  as  on  her  aged  father  and  friend, 
she  nevertheless  wrote  to  him,  knowing  how  much  a  word 
of  cheer  from  her  would  gladden  his  last  hours.^^ 

My  Honoured  Father — You  who  have  had  so  long  experience 
iu  directing  others  in  doubtful  matters,  can  have  no  difficulty  in 
directing  yourself,  for  not  only  will  your  religion,  but  your  learn- 
ing also  convince  you,  that  you  ought  to  be  prepared,  if  it  be 
necessary,  to  suffer  death  for  the  name  of  Christ,  and  under  such 
circumstances  not  to  slirink  from  so  doing.  Go  onwards,  then, 
and  be  of  good  courage,  for  if  in  these  torments  you  endure  a  small 
amount  of  pain,  you  are  well  assured  that  you  will  receive  an  etcr- 

63.  This  letter  and  Bl.  John  Forest's  reply  are  taken  from  Stone  : 
Faithful  Unto  Death,  pp.  54  seq.  The  author  translates  them  from  Fr. 
Thomas  Bourchier  :  Hint.  Eccl.  de  Martyrio  FF.  Ord.  Min.,  remarking  that 
this  edition  of  the  friar's  valuable  history  contains  the  only  perfectly  cor- 
rect version  of  the  letters.  The  Parisian  edition  of  1586  brings  (pp.  53 
seq.)  a  slightly  different  version  of  them,  Parkinson  and  Du  Boys  tran- 
scribe the  letters  from  Sander. 


128  FRANCISCANS  AND 

nal  reward.  To  relinquish  such  a  reward  as  this  for  the  dread  of 
the  suffering,  might  well  be  accounted  the  act  of  a  confirmed  mad- 
man. 

But  alas  for  me,  your  daughter!  one  born  to  you  in  the  wounds 
of  Christ,  whom  for  a  season  you  leave  here  in  her  solitude;  leave, 
I  repeat,  in  the  depth  of  her  distress  and  affliction.     And  this  I 
may   venture   to    say   because   I   am   losing   him   whom   alone   I    fol- 
lowed in  the  things  of  God,  because  I  knew  him  to  be  deeply  in- 
structed in  human   and   divine  knowledge.     And   of   a  truth,  if  I 
may  freely  express  to  you  what  I  wish,  I  would  rather  go  before 
you  through  a  thousand  torments  than  follow  after  you.    And  even 
were  it  possible   to  obtain  what   one  most  earnestly  desires,   who 
is  there,  I  ask,  who  would  be  content  to  live  upon  nothing  but  hope? 
Casting  aside  therefore  my  own  individual  wishes,  I  would  pre- 
fer that  the  whole  of  these  matters  should  remain  in  the  hands  of 
Him  who  gave  us  Himself  for  our  example.     This  He  did  when  He 
said,  "Thy  will  be  done,"  thereby  giving  up  His  own  will,  rather 
than  gratify   His   own   inclinations.     You  will  go   before  me,  yes, 
you  will  precede  me,  but  your  prayers  will  obtain  for  me,  that  I 
should  follow  you  along  the  same  pathway,  advancing,  as  I  trust, 
with  an  ever  braver  and  steadier  footstep.     Onwards,  then;  be  as- 
sured that  albeit  the  pangs  that  you  suffer  be  grievous,  yet  I  share 
them  along  with  you.     Without  doubt,  they  shall  earn  for  you  a 
crown   which  never  withers,  a  crown  prepared  for  those  who  en- 
dure for  the  name  of  Christ,  provided  that  with  unflinching  and 
unwavering    courage    you    suffer    the    agonies    which    are    awaiting 
you.     Eemember  your  ancient  and  noble  family,  and  this  thought 
will  assuredly  animate  you  to  bear  with  a  brave  spirit  the  death 
which  awaits  you  for  the  name  of  Clirist.     You  who  are  illustrious 
by  the  title  of  your  family,  will  not  basely  defile  its  nobility  by 
yielding  to  the  impious  demands  of  the  King.     I  do  not  forget  that 
you  esteem  the  dignity  of  your  Order  in  so  far,  and  no  farther,  as 
it  is  correspondent  with  virtue.     Surrender,  then,  and  with  all  joy, 
that  body  of  yours  to  its  Creator,  that  body  which  for  so  long  a 
period  has  led  a  holy  life  under  the  garb  of  the  poor  Institute  of 
St.  Francis. 

And  yet,  when  I,  your  obedient  daughter,  remember  how  great 
will  be  the  sorrow  which  I  shall  endure  for  your  sake,  I  know  not 
what  to  say.  This  arises  chiefly  from  the  thought  that  you  are 
leaving  me  without  comfort  of  any  kind.  My  abode  in  this  world, 
and  my  anticipations,  can  be  nothing  else  than  misery;  a  real  death 
in  a  living  life.  Nevertheless,  I  trust  in  the  Lord,  to  whom  I  have 
said,  "Thou  art  my  lot  in  the  land  of  the  living,"  that  land  in 
which  I  hope  to  meet  you  shortly,  when  the  storms  of  this  world 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  129 

shall  have  ended,  and  I  shall  have  passed  into  the  peaceful  life 
of  the  blessed. 

Farewell,  my  honoured  Father,  and  always  remember  me  in 
your  prayers  while  on  earth,  and  I  trust  they  will  be  my  chiefest 
consolation  when  you  shall  have  obtained  an  entrance  into  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven. 

Your  daughter  Catherine,  with  a  heart  full  of  sorrow. 

As  is  evident  from  the  tone  of  the  letter,  the  queen 
thought  that  the  blessed  martyr  had  only  a  short  time  to 
live."*  Her  fears  were  confirmed  on  the  receipt  of  the  fol- 
lowing beautiful  letter  from  the  saintly  friar. 

My  most  serene  Lady  Queen  and  my  very  dear  daughter  in  the 
heart  of  Christ  Jesus. 

I  have  received  your  letters  from  Thomas,  your  young  servant, 
and  having  read  them,  I  experienced  an  incredible  joy  by  reason  of 
your  great  steadfastness  in  the  truth  which  I  perceive  in  you — I  mean 
your  faith  in  the  Holy  Church  your  Mother.  Standing  firm  in  this, 
you  will  assuredly  obtain  salvation.  Nor  have  you  any  reason  to  be 
doubtful  on  my  account,  as  if  I  could  submit  to  disgrace  my  grey 
hairs  by  any  such  fickleness.  In  the  meantime,  I  earnestly  entreat  you 
to  be  unwearied  in  your  prayers  to  God  for  me  (for  whose  spouse  the 
Church  we  are  suffering  so  many  and  so  severe  torments),  that  He 
would  receive  me  into  His  glory,  for  which  I  have  striven  so  fre- 
quently as  a  member  of  the  Order  of  St.  Francis,  namely  for  forty- 
four  years,  and  am  now  in  the  sixty-fourth  year  of  my  age.  At  such 
a  period  of  life  as  this  a  man  easily  perceives  that  people  can  do 
without  him;  consequently  I  am  most  earnest  in  my  prayer  that  I 
may  be  dissolved  to  be  with  Christ. 

In  the  mean  season,  do  you  be  careful  to  shun  that  pestilential 
teaching  of  the  heretics  so  thoroughly  that,  even  if  an  angel  were  to 
come  down  from  heaven  bringing  with  him  a  doctrine  different  from 
that  which  I  brought  you,  on  no  account  ought  you  to  give  any  credence 
to  his  message,  but  to  reject  it.  Should  he  advance  any  revelation 
which  dissents  from  that  which  I  taught  you  long  ago,  give  no  eai 
to  it,  for  it  does  not  come  from  God.  Take  these  few  words  as  if  in 
place  of  the  consolation  which  you  may  expect  chiefly  from  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  to  whom  I  chiefly  recommend  you,  as  also  to  my  father 
St.  Francis  and  St.  Catherine,  to  whom  I  most  earnestly  entreat  you 
to  pray  for  me,  when  you  shall  hear  that  I  am  in  the  midst  of  my  suffer- 

64.  The  niartyrflom  of  Bl.  .Tohn  Forest,  as  we  shall  see,  did  not  take 
place  till  May  22,' 1538. 


130  FRANCISCANS  AND 

ings.     And  now  I  bid  you  farewell.     I  have  sent  my  rosary  to  you,  for 
only  three  days  of  my  life  remain  to  me. 

From  a  letter  which  Elizabeth  Lady  Hammond,  one  of 
the  queen's  faithful  gentlewomen  addressed  to  Bl.  John 
Forest  we  learn  how  Henry  ever  anxious  to  detect  some  flaw 
in  the  queen 's  conduct  had  Kimbolton  castle  closely  searched 
for  secret  letters  and  for  persons  previously  expelled  from 
her  service;  and  further,  how  the  king's  agents  by  their 
threatening  attitude  terrified  the  queen  and  her  ladies.®^ 
Thus  the  dreary  year  1535  dragged  on,  bringing  Catherine 
ever  nearer  to  death's  door.  "The  fury  of  her  enemies," 
writes  Guerin,  "increased  in  proportion  as  her  sufferings 
grew  more  intense.  She  was  almost  constantly  sick  in 
bed."«« 

It  was  probably  in  the  fall  of  1535  that  Cranmer  visited 
her  and  in  the  king's  name  commanded  her  to  sign  the  act 
recognizing  Henry's  spiritual  supremacy  over  the  Church 
in  England.  At  this,  the  queen  became  indignant ;  but  be- 
ing unable  longer  to  bear  up  under  her  hardships,  she 
fainted.^'  Hatred  and  revenge  possessed  Henry's  rebellious 
mind,  when  he  was  told  of  Catherine's  refusal  to  take  the 
oath  of  supremacy.  On  November  6  and  21,  Chapuys  in- 
formed the  emperor  of  the  danger  that  threatened  the  queen 
and  her  daughter.  He  claimed  to  have  it  on  reliable 
authority  that  the  king  "would  no  longer  remain  in  the 
trouble,  fear,  and  suspense  he  had  so  long  endured,  on  ac- 
count of  the  queen  and  princess.  .  .  .  and  that  he  meant 
to  have  them  despatched  at  the  next  parliament.  .  .  . 
These  are  things,"  he  continues,  "too  monstrous  to  be  be- 
lieved ;  but  considering  what  has  passed,  and  goes  on  daily — 
the  long  continuance  of  these  menaces — and,  moreover,  that 
the  C.  .  .  .  (Anne),  who  long  ago  conspired  the  death 
of  the  said  ladies,  and  thinks  of  nothing  but  getting  rid  of 
them,  is  the  person  who  governs  everything,  and  whom  the 

65.  stone :  Faithful  Vnto  Death,  p.  58 ;  Strickland,  p.  564  ;  Du  Boys, 
p.  508. 

66.  Guerin.  Vol.  I,  p.  142. 

67.  Ibidem,  Vol.  I,  p.  143. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  131 

king  is  unable  to  contradict,  the  matter  is  very  dangerous. '  '®* 
What  the  faithful  ambassador  feared  never  came  to  pass. 
The  sudden  demise  of  Catherine  before  the  opening  of 
parliament  prevented  Henry  from  taking  these  last  terrible 
measures  against  his  faithful  and  saintly  queen. 

About  this  time,  an  incident  occurred  which  shows  how 
even  to  the  very  end  the  queen  enjoyed  the  love  and  favor 
of  the  lower  classes.  A  workman  of  Grantham  near  Kim- 
bolton,  while  working  in  his  field,  accidentally  unearthed  a 
huge  brass  pot  that  contained  besides  some  silver  chains  and 
ancient  rolls  of  parchment,  a  large  helmet  of  pure  gold  set 
with  precious  stones.  Thinking  of  the  queen  in  her  poverty, 
he  brought  the  treasures  to  the  castle,  with  the  request  that 
they  be  given  to  her.  But  Catherine  was  already  at  death 's 
door."^ 

In  the  latter  part  of  December,  Catherine  realized  that 
her  end  was  near.  "When  Chapuys,  whom  she  had  sum- 
moned for  a  last  interview,  arrived  at  the  castle,  he  found 
her  in  a  pitiable  condition.  Seeing  at  a  glance  that  it  was 
now  only  a  question  of  a  few  days  till  death  would  come  to 
her  relief,  he  decided  to  stay  with  her  to  the  end.'°  On 
New  Year's  day.  Lady  Willoughby  who  thirty  years  before 
had  attended  Catherine  as  maid  of  honor,  by  sheer  strategy 
gained  access  to  her.'^^  We  are  told  that  frequently  in  a 
state  of  delirium  the  dying  queen  imagining  her  daughter 
near  would  stretch  forth  her  arms  and  exclaim,  ' '  Mary,  my 
child ! '  '^-  Humbly  she  begged  the  king  for  a  last  interview 
with  the  princess  for  whose  sake  she  had  borne  her  heavy 
cross  these  many  years.  But  even  now  the  cruel  despot  re- 
mained cold  and  obdurate.  At  last,  only  a  few  days  before 
her  death,  Catherine  called  one  of  her  maids  to  her  bedside 
and  dictated  the  following  pathetic  letter  to  her  unworthy 
consort  :'^ 

68.  Stone  :  Mary  the  First,  Queen  of  England,  p.  90. 

69.  Du  Boys,  p.  504,  on  the  authority  of  Harpsfleld. 

70.  Stone,  Mary  .  ...  of  England,  p.  92. 

71.  Strickland,  p.  567. 

72.  Gu6rin,  p.   143. 

73.  Strickland,  pp.  564  seq. 


132  FRANCISCANS  AND 

My  Lord  and  dear   Husband: — 

I  commend  me  unto  you.  The  hour  of  my  death  draweth  fast 
on,  and,  my  case  being  such,  the  tender  love  I  owe  you  forceth  me, 
•with  a  few  words,  to  put  you  in  remembrance  of  the  health  and  safe- 
guard of  your  soul,  which  you  ought  to  prefer  before  all  worldly 
matters  and  before  the  care  and  tendering  of  your  own  body,  for 
the  which  you  have  cast  me  into  many  miseries  and  yourself  into  many 
cares.  For  my  part  I  do  pardon  you  all;  yet,  I  do  wish  and  devoutly 
pray  God  that  He  will  also  pardon  you. 

For  the  rest  I  commend  unto  you  Mary,  our  daughter,  beseech- 
ing you  to  be  a  good  father  unto  her,  as  I  heretofore  desired.  I  entreat 
you  also,  on  behalf  of  my  maids,  to  give  them  marriage-portions,  which 
is  not  much,  they  being  but  three.  For  all  my  other  servants  I  solicit 
a  year 's  pay  more  than  their  due,  lest  they  should  be  unprovided  for. 

Lastly  do  I  vow  that  mine  eyes  desire  you  above  all  things. 

It  is  said  that  Henry  wept  when  he  read  this  touching 
avowal  of  his  rejected  queen's  undying  love  and  loyalty.^"* 
But  alas !  his  better  self  was  wholly  enfettered  by  one  whose 
only  hope  of  complete  triumph  lay  in  the  death  of  the  noble 
queen. 

During  the  visit  of  Chapuys  and  Lady  Willoughby, 
Catherine  rallied  somewhat.  There  was  still  hope  for  a 
temporary  recovery,  so  that  on  January  5,  the  ambassador 
deemed  it  safe  and  advisable  to  leave  Kimbolton.  He  prom- 
ised, however,  to  return  at  the  first  intimation  of  danger. 
On  January  9,  he  asked  Cromwell  for  an  audience  with  the 
king.  How  shocked  he  was  when  in  reply  he  received  the 
sad  news  that  forty-eight  hours  after  his  departure  from 
Kimbolton  Catherine  had  suddenly  passed  away.  Sir  Ed- 
mund Bedingfield  announced  her  demise  in  these  words: 
"January  7th,  about  ten  o'clock  the  lady-dowager  was 
aneled  with  the  holy  ointment,  Master  Chamberlayne  and  I 
being  called  to  the  same,  and  before  two  in  the  afternoon  she 
departed  to  God."" 

"The  suddenness  of  her  end,  and  the  circumstances  im- 
mediately following  it,  caused  so  much  suspicion,  that  at 
the  time  there  was  hardly  any  one  who  did  not  firmly  believe 

74.  Sander,  p.  85. 

76.  Strickland,  p.  568,  on  the  authority  of  the  State  Papers. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  133 

that  she  had  been  poisoned."'^  According  to  the  ambas- 
sador's subsequent  letter  to  the  emperor,  Catherine  died  two 
hours  after  midday,  and  eight  hours  later  an  autopsy  was 
held  in  the  greatest  secrecy.  Neither  the  bishop  of  Llandaff , 
confessor  of  the  queen,  nor  her  physician  were  allowed  to 
be  present.  Immediately  after,  one  of  the  three  men  who  at 
the  king's  command  had  performed  the  examination  confided 
the  results  to  the  queen's  confessor,  "but  in  great  secrecy, 
as  a  thing  which  would  cost  his  life.  .  .  .  On  my  man," 
continues  the  ambassador,  ' '  asking  the  physician  if  she  had 
died  of  poison,  he  replied  that  the  thing  was  too  evident,  by 
what  has  been  said  to  the  bishop,  her  confessor,  and  if 
that  had  not  been  disclosed,  the  thing  was  sufficiently  clear 
from  the  report  and  circumstances  of  the  illness. 

In  the  same  letter  of  Chapuys  we  are  informed  how 
the  king  and  his  court  party  rejoiced  when  the  news 
arrived  that  Catherine  was  dead.  The  next  day,  on  Sun- 
day, Henry  "was  clad  all  over  in  yellow,  fronrtop  to  toe." 
After  dinner,  he  proceeded  to  the  hall  where  the  ladies  were 
dancing  and  acted  ' '  like  one  transported  with  joy. ' '  Hav- 
ing sent  for  the  infant  Elizabeth,  he  took  her  in  his  arms 
and  presented  her  to  his  fawning  courtiers.  No  less  exultant 
was  Anne  Boleyn.  "Now,"  she  exclaimed,  "I  am  indeed 
a  queen  ! ' '  Hastening  to  her  parents,  she  bade  them  be  glad 
with  her,  for  now  her  triumph  was  complete.  On  the  day 
of  the  queen's  funeral,  Anne  out  of  contempt  for  Catherine 
appeared  in  yellow  and  made  her  ladies  do  the  same, 
although  the  king  had  commanded  black  to  be  worn  on  that 
day."^  Mary  was  heartbroken  when  she  heard  of  her 
mother's  sudden  demise.     "Of  the  princess,  my  cousin," 

76.  Stone  :  Mary  ....  of  England,  p.  92.  Whether  the  king  was  in 
any  way  implicated  in  this  heinous  crime  is  not  known.  As  we  have  seen, 
he  certainly  longed  for  Catherine's  end,  and  he  probably  would  have  had 
her  condemned  to  death  and  executed  by  the  next  parliament.  As  to  Anne 
Bolevn's  share  in  the  murder  of  the  queen,  Gasquet,  in  his  Henry  VIII 
and'the  English  Monasteries  (Vol.  I,  p.  2S5),  declares  on  the  authority 
of  Friedmann  that  the  crime  was  perpetrated  "if  not  at  the  instigation,  at 
least  with  the  connivance  of  Anne  Boleyn." 

77.  Strickland,  p.  678.  Could  the  wretched  woman  have  only  fore- 
seen what  was  in  store  for  her.  Henry's  aversion  to  her  gradually  became 
more    pronounced.      On    May    9,-  four    months    after    the    death    of    Queen 


134  FRANCISCANS  AND 

the  emperor  wrote,  "I  hear  only  that  she  is  inconsolable  at 
the  loss  she  has  sustained,  especially  when  she  thinks  of  her 
father's  past  behaviour  towards  her,  and  the  little  favour 
she  can  expect  for  the  future. '  '^^ 

The  last  will  of  Catherine  bears  eloquent  testimony  to  the 
eminent  virtues  that  marked  her  sad  but  glorious  career ,''® 
The  first  provision  she  made  was  that  her  body  "be  buried 
in  a  convent  of  Observant  friars. '  '*"  In  life  the  royal  Terti- 
ary had  ever  cherished  the  highest  regard  for  the  sons  of  St. 
Francis,  and  hoping  perhaps  that  in  time  they  would  be 
allowed  to  return  to  their  convents,  the  saintly  queen  could 
find  no  more  suitable  resting  place  after  death  than  in  the 
midst  of  those  who  like  her  had  suffered  for  justice  sake. 
But  alas !  her  dying  wish  was  entirely  disregarded.  Writing 
to  Lady  Bedingfield®^  on  arranging  for  the  funeral  of  his 
"dearest  sister  lady  Catherine,"  the  king  ordered  that,  on 
January  26,  the  corpse  should  be  escorted  by  the  principal 
gentry  of  Kimbolton  to  Peterborough,  about  four  miles 
north,  and  interred  in  the  abbey  church.  At  the  subsequent 
suppression  and  spoliation  of  the  religious  houses  in  the 
kingdom,  Henry  made  some  show  of  regard  for  the  queen  he 
had  wronged,  and  spared  the  beautiful  abbey  church,  where 
as  late  as  1847,  the  old  verger  still  pointed  out  to  travelers 
the  little  brass  plate  that  marked  the  last  resting  place  of  the 
glorious  Tertiary  Queen  Catherine  of  Aragon.^- 

Concerning  Kimbolton  Castle,  Timbs  informs  us  that 
"the  room  in  which  she  (Catherine)  died  remains.  The 
chest,  in  which  she  kept  her  clothes  and  jewels,  her  own 
cipher  on  the  lid,  still  lies  at  the  foot  of  the  grand  stair- 

Catherine,  he  had  her  tried  and  condemned  to  death  for  high  treason,  and 
that  by  the  very  parliament  that  would  probably  have  passed  the  same 
sentence  on  the  rightful  queen. 

78.  Stone  :  Mart/  .  ...  of  England,  p.  98. 

79.  Strickland,  p.  569,  quotes  the  will  from  Strype's  Memoriala. 

80.  Stone:  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  62,  quotes  a  letter  of  Chapuys  to 
the  emperor,  dated  January  21,  1536.  In  this  letter,  the  ambassador 
writes  :  ."The  Lady  Catherine,  in  her  memorandum  of  last  wishes,  desired 
to  be  buried  in  a  convent  of  Observant  friars.  Cromwell  replied  that  as  to 
the  burial  it  could  not  be  done  as  she  had  desired,  for  there  remained  no 
convent  of  the  Observants  in  England." 

81.  Strickland,  p.  571,  quotes  the  letter. 

82.  Ibidem,  p.  573. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  135 

case. '  '^2  From  a  letter  of  Horace  Walpole,  dated  June  22, 
1772,  we  learn  that  at  Amptliill  "nothing  remains  of  the 
castle,  nor  any  marks  of  residence  but  a  small  garden. ' '  At 
his  suggestion,  a  cross  was  erected  to  Catherine's  memory, 
on  which  he  had  engraved  the  following  verses : 

In  days  of  old,  here  Ampthill's  towers  were  seen, 
The  mournful  refuge  of  an  injured  queen. §4 

Every  student  of  this  period  of  English  histary  is  ac- 
quainted with  Shakespeare's  drama.  King  Henry  the  Eighth, 
The  poet's  sympathetic  treatment  of  Queen  Catherine  of 
Aragon  mirrors  the  sentiments  of  the  English  nation  in  the 
beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century.  To  show  how  cor- 
rect historically  is  Shakespeare's  delineation  of  her  char- 
acter we  take  the  liberty,  even  at  the  risk  of  wearying  the 
reader,  to  quote  at  some  length  from  H.  N.  Hudson's  com- 
mentary on  the  play.  His  remarks  will  serve  at  the  same 
time  as  a  summary  of  the  queen's  many  beautiful  traits. 

' '  She  maintains  the  same  simple,  austere,  and  solid  sweet- 
ness of  mind  and  manners  through  all  the  changes  of  fortune. 
Yet  she,  too,  rises  by  her  humiliation,  and  is  made  perfect  by 
suifering,  if  not  in  herself,  at  least  to  us :  for  it  gives  her 
full  sway  over  those  deeper  sympathies  which  are  necessary 
to  a  just  appreciation  of  the  profound  and  venerable  beauty 
of  her  character.  She  is  mild,  meek,  and  discreet ;  and  the 
harmonious  blending  of  these  qualities  with  her  high  Castil- 
lian  pride  gives  her  a  very  peculiar  charm.  Therewithal  she 
is  plain  in  mind  and  person ;  has  neither  great  nor  brilliant 
parts ;  and  of  this  she  is  fully  aware,  for  she  knows  herself 
thoroughly :  but  she  is  nevertheless  truly  great, — and  this 
is  the  one  truth  about  her  which  she  does  not  know, — from 
the  symmetry  and  composure  wherein  all  the  elements  of  her 
being  stand  and  move  together:  so  that  she  presents  a  re- 
markable instance  of  greatness  in  the  whole,  with  the  absence 
of  it  in  the  parts.  How  clear  and  exact  her  judgment  and 
discrimination  !  Yet  we  scarce  know  whence  it  comes,  or  how. 

83.  Timbs,  p.  497.  84.   Strickland,  p.  574, 


136  FRANCISCANS  AND 

From  the  first  broaching  of  the  divorce,  she  knows  the  thing 
is  all  a  foregone  conclusion  with  the  king ;  she  is  also  in  full 
possession  of  the  secret  why  it  is  so  :  she  feels  her  utter  help- 
lessness, being,  as  she  is,  in  a  land  of  strangers,  with  a 
capricious  tyrant  for  the  party  against  her,  so  that  no  man 
will  dare  to  befriend  her  cause  with  honest  heartiness :  that 
no  trial  there  to  be  had  can  be  anything  but  a  mockery  of 
justice,  for  the  sole  purpose  will  be  to  find  arguments  in  sup- 
port of  what  is  predetermined,  and  to  set  a  face  of  truth  on 
a  body  of  falsehood;  she  has  no  way  therefore  but  to  take 
care  of  her  own  cause ;  her  only  help  lies  in  being  true  to  her- 
self;  and  indeed  the  modest,  gentle,  dignified  wisdom  with 
which  she  schools  herself  to  meet  the  crisis  is  worth  a  thou- 
sand-fold more  than  all  the  defences  that  any  learning  and 
ingenuity  and  eloquence  could  frame  in  her  behalf. 

"Her  power  over  our  better  feelings  is  in  no  small 
degree  owing  to  the  impression  we  take,  that  she  sees  through 
her  husband  perfectly,  yet  never  in  the  least  betrays  to  him, 
and  hardly  owns  to  herself,  what  mean  and  hateful  qualities 
she  knows  or  feels  to  be  in  him.  It  is  not  possible  to  over- 
state her  simple  artlessness  of  mind ;  while  nevertheless  her 
simplicity  is  of  such  a  texture  as  to  be  an  overmatch  for  all 
the  unscrupulous  wiles  by  which  she  is  beset.  Her  betrayers, 
with  all  their  mazy  craft,  can  neither  keep  from  her  the 
secret  of  their  thoughts  nor  turn  her  knowledge  of  it  into 
any  blemish  of  her  innocence ;  nor  is  she  less  brave  to  face 
their  purpose  than  penetrating  to  discover  it.  And  when 
her  resolution  is  fixed,  that  "nothing  but  death  shall  e'er 
divorce  her  dignities,"  it  is  not,  and  we  feel  it  is  not,  that  she 
holds  the  accidents  of  her  position  for  one  iota  more  than 
they  are  worth ;  but  that  these  are  to  her  the  necessary  sym- 
bols of  her  honor  as  a  wife,  and  the  inseparable  garments  of 
her  delicacy  as  a  woman ;  and  as  such  they  have  so  grown  in 
with  her  life,  that  she  can  not  survive  the  parting  with  them ; 
to  say  nothing  of  how  they  are  bound  up  with  her  sentiments 
of  duty,  of  ancestral  reverence,  and  of  self-respect.  More- 
over many  hard,  hard  trials  have  made  her  conscious  of  her 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  137 

sterling  virtue :  she  has  borne  too  much,  and  borne  it  too 
well,  to  be  ignorant  of  what  she  is  and  how  much  better 
things  she  has  deserved ;  she  knows,  as  she  alone  can  know, 
that  patience  has  had  its  perfect  work  wdth  her:  and  this 
knowledge  of  her  solid  and  true  worth,  so  sorely  tried,  so 
fully  proved,  enhances  to  her  sense  the  insult  and  wrong  that 
are  put  upon  her,  making  them  eat  like  rust  into  her 
soul.     .     .     . 

"Catherine  in  her  seclusion,  and  discrowned  of  all  but 
her  honor  and  her  sorrow,  is  one  of  the  author 's  noblest  and 
sweetest  deliverances.  She  there  leads  a  life  of  homely 
simplicity.  Always  beautiful  on  the  throne,  in  her  humili- 
ation she  is  more  beautiful  still.  She  carries  to  the  place  no 
grudge  or  resentment  or  bitterness  towards  any ;  nothing  but 
faith,  hope,  and  charity;  a  touching  example  of  womanly 
virtue  and  gentleness ;  hourly  in  heaven  for  her  enemies ; 
her  heart  garrisoned  with  'the  peace  that  passeth  all  under- 
standing. '  Candid  and  plain  to  herself,  she  loves  and  hon- 
ours plainness  and  candour  in  others ;  and  it  seems  a  positive 
relief  to  her  to  hear  the  best  spoken  that  can  be  of  the  fallen 
great  man  who  did  more  than  all  the  rest  to  work  her  fall. 
Her  calling  the  messenger  'saucy  fellow,'  who  breaks  in  so 
abruptly  upon  her,  discloses  just  enough  of  human  w^eakness 
to  make  us  feel  that  she  is  not  quite  an  a^gel  yet ;  and  in  her 
death  scene  we  have  the  divinest  notes  of  a  'soul  by  resigna- 
tion sanctified.'  "^^ 

85.  Hudson  :  Shakespeare:  His  Life,  Art,  and  Character,  Vol  II,  pp. 
196  seq. 


CHAPTER  IX 

BLESSED  JOHN  FOREST,  O.  F.  M. 

Birth  and  parentage — Enters  the  Franciscan  Order — Doctor 
of  Oxford — Provincial  of  England — Espouses  the 
c[ueen's  cause — Fr.  Richard  Lyst,  traitor  and  spy — 
Blessed  Forest  and  the  king — Attempt  to  remove  Forest 
from  the  provincialship — Staunch  defender  of  papal 
supremacy — Imprisoned,  tried,  condemned  to  death — 
Martyrdom  delayed — V/ith  the  Conventuals  in  London 
Entrapped  in  the  confessional — Before  the  Privy  Coun- 
cil— Once  more  in  Newgate — Tried  for  heresy — Sen- 
tenced to  die  at  the  stake — His  alleged  submission — 
Drawn  on  a  hurdle  to  Smithfield — The  friars  and  the 
bishop — Dreadful  torture  and  death. 

We  have  seen  in  the  course  of  our  narrative  how  fear- 
lessly the  English  Franciscans  championed  the  rights  of 
Queen  Catherine,  and  how  bravely  they  suffered  banishment, 
imprisonment,  torture,  and  death  in  defence  of  papal 
supremacy.  We  have  contemplated  the  life  and  martyrdom 
of  the  illustrious  Tertiary  Chancellor  Bl.  Thomas  More,  and 
have  seen  the  saintly  Tertiary  Queen  Catherine  of  Aragon, 
insulted,  discrowned,  and  repudiated  by  a  faithless  and  cruel 
king.  Before  continuing  our  sad  but  edifying  story,  we 
must  direct  our  attention  to  a  man  whose  glorious  example 
of  unswerving  loj^alty  to  truth  guided  and  encouraged  the 
friars  at  the  outbreak  of  the  storm  and  finally  won  for  him 
the  martyr's  crown. 

Bl.  John  Forest  was  born  in  1471.  It  is  probable  that 
the  place  of  his  birth  was  Oxford,  where  according  to  Wood 
there  resided  about  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century  a 
family  by  the  name  of  Forest.^     William  Forest,  the  poet 

1.   Thaddeus,  Life  0/  Blessed  John  Forest,  p.  2, 

138 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  139 

priest,  is  supposed  to  have  been  related  to  the  martyr.-  As 
appears  from  the  letter  of  Queen  Catherine,^  he  was  of  an 
ancient  and  noble  family.  Of  his  early  years  nothing  is 
known  beyond  the  fact  that,  as  Wood  observes,  "he  was  from 
his  childhood  educated  in  piety  and  learning.""*  During  the 
last  two  decades  of  the  fifteenth  centviry,  the  reform  move- 
ment in  the  Order  of  St.  Francis  was  fast  gaining  ground 
in  the  English  Province,  while  the  friars  by  their  zeal  and 
sanctity  were  attracting  nation-wide  attention.  Hence  we 
can  readily  imagine  how  the  parents  of  Forest  rejoiced  when 
he  told  them  of  his  desire  to  forgo  the  promises  and  pleas- 
ures of  the  world  and  to  embrace  the  secluded  and  holy  life 
of  the  Franciscans.  Gladly  they .  consented,  and  in  1491, 
the  young  man  of  twenty  summers^  received  the  gray  habit 
in  the  friary  at  Greenwich. 

The  year  of  novitiate  and  the  subsequent  years  of  study 
were  spent  in  seclusion  and  prayer.  Shut  off  from  worldly 
cares  and  distractions,  the  youthful  friar  was  laying  the 
foundation  of  that  magnificent  structure  of  Franciscan  ideals 
which  was  destined  to  stand  unshaken  amid  the  fury  of 
warring  elements.  Little  did  he  surmise,  kneeling  in  prayer 
before  the  image  of  his  heavenly  Queen,  what  great  things 
were  in  store  for  him,  and  what  a  noble  part  he  was  one  day 
to  play  for  the  spiritual  welfare  of  his  country. 

In  1500,  at  the  age  of  twenty -nine,  we  find  Forest  residing 
in  the  friary  without  "Watergate,  a  suburb  south  of  Oxford,, 
where  he  devoted  himself  to  the  study  of  theology.  Later, 
he  pursued  a  higher  course  in  the  sacred  sciences,  presum- 
ably at  the  university  of  Oxford.  Here,  as  Wood  informs 
us,  he  supplicated  the  venerable  regents  for  permission  to 

2.  The  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  Vol.  VI,  p.  144.  Among  his  writings 
is  a  long  poem  on  Queen  Catherine  of  Aragon. 

3.  See  the  foregoing  chapter. 

4.  Parkinson,   Antiquities  of  the   English  Franciscans,  p.   241. 

5.  The  year  of  Forest's  birth  (1471)  and  that  of  his  entrance  into 
the  Franciscan  Order  (1491)  are  based  on  his  letter  to  Queen  Catherine, 
which  was  most  probably  written  in  1535.  (See  the  foregoing  chapter.) 
In  this  letter,  he  says  expressly  that  he  is  in  his  sixty-fourth  year,  and 
that  he  has  passed  four  and  forty  years  in  the  Order  of  St.  Francis.  Other 
historians  affirm  that  he  was  seventeen  years  of  age  when  he  entered  the 
Order.     See  Parkinson,  p.  241. 


140 


FRANCISCANS  AND 


Bl.  John  Forest 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  141 

take  the  degree  of  doctor  of  divinity.  Whether  he  was 
admitted,  is  not  known.  Although  Wood  thinks  that  Forest 
received  the  degree-  neither  at  Oxford  nor  at  Cambridge, 
still  he  says  that,  especially  about  the  year  1517,  the  regis- 
ters of  Oxford  were  badly  kept.  This,  Parkinson  urges, 
may  account  for  the  absence  of  Forest 's  name  from  the  roster 
of  Oxford  doctors,  "or  perhaps,"  as  he  suggests,  "he  was  a 
doctor  of  Paris. '  '*^  At  all  events,  it  is  certain  that  he  held 
the  title ;  for,  besides  Wood,  also  Stow,  Godwyn,  How,  Holin- 
shed.  Pits,  Wadding,  Davenport,  Bourchier,  Mason,  and 
most  later  historians,  like  Dodd,  apply  it  to  him ;  while  the 
fact  that  Hugh  Latimer,  on  the  morning  of  Forest's 
martyrdom,  repeatedly  addressed  him  as  Doctor,  seems  to 
remove  all  doubt  in  the  matter. 

As  years  went  on,  Fr.  John  Forest  became  known  far 
and  wide  as  a  man  of  eminent  learning  and  sterling  sanctity. 
Wholly  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  St.  Francis,  he  labored 
zealously  in  establishing  and  spreading  the  Observant  re- 
form among  the  friars  in  England.  It  was  quite  natural, 
therefore,  that,  probably  on  the  death  of  the  provincial  Fr. 
Stephen  Baron,  about  the  year  1520,  he  was  elected  by  the 
friars  to  succeed  him.'^  It  must  have  been  in  virtue  of  his 
authority  as  provincial  superior  that,  on  January  22,  1525, 
he  received  orders  from  Cardinal  Wolsey  to  preach  at  St. 
Paul's  Cross  and  publicly  to  pronounce  the  censures  of  the 
Church  on  nineteen  friars  of  the  Greenwich  community. 
They  had  left  the  friary  without  permission  as  a  protest 
against  Cardinal  Wolsey,  who  wished  to  make  a  canonical 
visitation  of  their  convent,  to  which  act  he  claimed  his  lega- 

e.  See  Parkinson,  p.  241. 

7.  That  Forest  was  provincial  is  asserted  by  Wood,  Parkinson,  Dodd, 
Magliano,  Leon,  Gasquet,  Holzapfel  (on  the  authority  of  Wadding),  and 
by  the  Breviarium  liornajio-Seraphicum.  Thaddeus  and  Hope  accept  It 
as  at  least  probable,  while  Stone  thinks  "there  can  be  little  doubt"  that 
he  held  the  office.  That,  as  Wood  and  Dodd  say,  he  succeeded  Fr.  Stephen 
Baron  in  this  office,  is  denied  by  Parkinson.  The  latter  (p.  222)  places 
Forest  after  a  certain  Fr.  William,  who  had  succeeded  Baron,  but  on  being 
elected  definitor  general  was  constrained  to  resign  the  provincialship.  We 
may  add  that  several  incidents  in  the  life  of  Forest  and  the  prominent 
part  he  played  at  the  outbreak  of  the  religious  troubles  show  that  he  was 
provincial  superior,  whom  the  other  friars  were  obliged  to  obey,  and  whom 
above  all  the  king  sought  to  win  over  to  his  cau.se. 


142  FRANCISCANS  AND 

tine  jurisdiction  empowered  him.  Though  the  friars  had 
evidently  failed  by  thus  transgressing  the  enclosure  rule, 
and  by  the  very  act  had  incurred  papal  censures,  still  the 
justice  of  their  protest  can  not  be  denied,  since  Pope  Leo  X, 
on  the  request  of  Henry  VIII,  had  exempted  them  from  the 
jurisdiction  of  his  legate.®  "But,"  as  Stone  remarks,  "in 
the  manner  of  their  repulse,  they  were  undoubtedly  wrong 
and  Forest  saw  in  it  a  flaw  in  their  loyal  attitude  towards 
the  See  of  Peter,  of  which  he  was  so  jealous  a  watchman."® 

This  remarkable  incident  in  the  life  of  Forest  shows 
how  by  his  sanctity  and  learning  he  had  secured  the  con- 
fidence of  the  highest  civil  and  ecclesiastical  authorities  in 
England.  He  was  subsequently  appointed  regular  preacher 
at  St.  Paul's  Cross.  This  was  at  the  time  the  most  popular 
pulpit  in  England.  Hence  it  gave  the  zealous  friar  an 
opportunity  to  exert  a  vast  influence  on  the  public  mind. 

As  a  fervent  Tertiary  of  St.  Francis,  Queen  Catherine 
had  learned  to  esteem  the  worthy  provincial  of  the  Francis- 
cans, to  whom,  we  know,  she  was  singularly  devoted.  Be- 
sides appointing  Forest  her  chaplain  at  Greenwich,  she 
chose  him  as  her  confessor  and  spiritual  adviser.  To  him 
she  confided  the  innermost  secrets  of  her  soul,  especially 
when  the  dark  clouds  of  domestic  tribulation  began  to  gather 
over  her.  We  have  every  reason  to  suppose  that  her  noble 
and  heroic  forebearance  with  her  faithless  consort  must  be 
in  great  part  ascribed  to  the  wise  counsel  of  the  Franciscan 
provincial,  in  whose  prudence  she  placed  absolute  trust. 
The  beautiful  letter  she  wrote  to  him  shortly  before  her  de- 
mise, breathes  the  spirit  of  a  loving  and  confiding  child, 
grateful  to  the  last  for  the  many  benefits  received  at  the 
hands  of  her  spiritual  father.  Him  alone,  she  remarks  in 
this  letter,  she  followed  in  the  things  of  God,  because  she 
knew  him  to  be  deeply  instructed  in  human  and  divine 
knowledge.^" 

8.  See  Parkinson,  p.  224 ;  also  Grey  Friars  Chronicle  critically  edited 
In  Monumetita  Franciscana  (Vol.  II)   by  Richard  Hewlett  (p.  190). 

9.  Stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  48. 

10.  See  the  foregoing  chapter. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  143 

Needless  to  say,  Forest  was  wholly  in  sympathy  with  the 
wronged  queen.  Well  versed  in  the  sacred  sciences,  he  was 
from  the  start  convinced  that  her  marriage  with  Henry  was 
valid  and  indissoluble.  Hence,  when  the  question  of  the 
king's  "secret  affair"  became  a  matter  of  public  comment, 
he  had  already  put  aside  all  doubt  and  hesitation,  and  was 
among  the  first  openly  to  defend  Catherine's  rights  when- 
ever occasion  offered.  After  1531,  when  the  queen  by  order 
of  Henry  was  residing  at  the  More  in  Hertfordshire,  her 
former  confessor  frequently  visited  her.  This  is  plain  from 
a  letter  which  a  spy  addressed  to  the  king.  "As  concerning 
the  Friars  Observants,"  he  says,  "they  came  at  divers  times 
to  confess  the  ladies  and  gentlewomen,  and  sometimes  they 
said  it  was  their  way  from  one  of  their  houses  to  another. 
As  many  names  as  I  did  know  I  shall  declare  Riche, 
Peto,  Sabastyan,  Curson,  Robynson,  Fforest  and  Neswick, 
with  divers  others. "^^ 

The  king  was  well  aware,  not  only  of  the  provincial's 
mind  on  the  divorce  question,  but  of  the  great  influence  the 
dauntless  friar  was  exerting  on  those  with  whom  he  came  in 
touch.  Accordingly,  he  summoned  him  one  day  to  the  royal 
palace  and  conferred  alone  with  him  for  more  than  half  an 
hour.  It  has  never  been  learned  what  passed  between  the 
king  and  the  friar  during  this  private  interview.  But  we 
may  take  it  for  granted  that  the  man  of  God,  like  another 
John  the  Baptist,  bravely  showed  his  royal  master  the  utter 
untenability  of  his  position  and  warned  him  against  the 
dangerous  path  he  was  pursuing.  If  the  wayward  king  was 
displeased  with  the  friar's  unfavorable  decision,  he  could 
not  but  admire  his  frankness  and  sincerity.  He  subse- 
quently ordered  some  beef  from  the  royal  table  to  be  brought 
to  the  Greenwich  friary.^-  Perhaps  he  hoped  in  this  way  to 
make  him  and  the  community  more  favorably  disposed 
toward  his  projected  divorce.     We  know  how  poorly  he 

11.  Camm,  Lives  of  the  English  Martyrs,  p.  277. 

12.  See   Gasquet,   Henry   VIII   and    the   English   Monasteries,   Vol.    I, 
p.  158. 


144  FEANCISCANS  AND 

succeeded  with  the  Franciscans  at  large.  It  remains  to  be 
seen  how  the  provincial  met  the  advances  of  the  king,  and 
how  much  he  had  to  suffer  in  defence  of  truth  and  justice. 

Cromwell,  Henry's  pliant  tool,  and  Anne  Boleyn,  his 
worthless  bauble,  were  keeping  the  Greenwich  community 
under  close  surveillance.  They  were  determined  to  know 
the  sentiments  of  each  friar  regarding  the  much  mooted 
question,  and  to  this  end  they  succeeded  in  winning  the 
services  of  Richard  Lyst,"  a  lay  brother  of  that  friary. 
The  letters^*  of  this  renegade  to  his  royal  patrons  are  still 
extant.  They  show  that  the  writer  was  no  longer  true  to 
his  vows,  and  that  he  was  discontented  with  his  station  as 
lay  brother  and  with  the  strict  Franciscan  mode  of  life. 
Blinded  by  promises  of  royal  preferments,  he  so  far  lost 
sight  of  the  duties  he  owed  to  God  and  to  his  Order  as  to 
play  the  base  role  of  rebel  and  traitor. 

In  one  of  his  letters  to  Anne  Boleyn,  the  unhappy  friar 
tells  "his  friend"  that  for  his  fidelity  to  her  and  to  the  king, 
he  has  much  to  suffer,  and  has  often  been  called  in  derision 
Anne's  chaplain.  He  is  not  yet  a  priest,  he  avers,  but  he 
has  ambition  to  become  one  and  to  say  one  hundred  Masses 
for  her  welfare.  Such  a  thing  is  possible  now,  he  adds, 
because  the  young  woman  to  whom  he  was  "made  sure  in 
the  way  of  marriage,  before  his  coming  into  religion,  is  de- 
parted to  the  mercy  of  God."  He  concludes  with  a  petition 
for  money ;  he  had  purchased  clothes  and  other  things  for 
his  mother  and  is  now  forty  shillings  in  debt. 

How  bitterly  he  hated  Fr.  Forest  and  sought  to  cripple 
his  influence,  we  learn  from  a  letter  which  he  addressed  to 
Cromwell. 

13.  "This  Richard  Lyst,"  Gasquet  notes,  "says  in  another  letter  that 
he  was  'of  old  lord  cardinal's  servant.'  He  'has  dreadful  dreams  three 
or  four  nights  each  week,'  and  thinks  'he  could  serve  God  better  in  another 
state  than'  as  he  is,  and  'get  rid  of  his  trouble.  He  adds,  'The  informa- 
tion I  sent  you  about  friar  Forest  deserves  support.'  A  few  months  after 
he  writes  as  a  student  in  'first  orders'  from  Clare  Hall,  Cambridge,  saying 
he  Intends  to  be  a  'secular  priest.'  "   (p.   159.) 

14.  They  are  quoted  in  part  by  Stone,  pp.  7  seq.,  as  found  among  the 
Cottonian  MMS.  and  in  Ellis's  Original  Letters.  Though  they  bear  no 
date,  it  is  most  probable  that  they  were  written  In  the  interval  between 
the  summer  of  1532  and  the  following  spring. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  145 

Sir,  your  Mastership  shall  understand  that  Father  Forest,  which 
doth  neither  love  nor  favour  you,  hath  laboured  divers  ways  to  sup- 
plant and  bring  Father  Laraus,i5  which  is  the  King's  faithful,  true 
subject,  out  of  favour,  both  with  the  King's  Grace  and  with  all  our 
fathers  and  brothers,  and  also,  as  much  as  in  him  is,  to  expulse  him 
out  of  our  convent  of  Greenwich;  and  his  original  and  chief  cause  is, 
because  he  knoweth  that  Father  Larans  is  provided,  and  will  also  preach 
the  King's  matter,  whensoever  it  shall  please  his  Grace  to  command 
him,  and  so  the  very  truth  is,  that  Father  Forest  will  not  preach  the 
King's  matter  himself,  nor  yet  suffer  Father  Larans  by  his  will  to 
do  so.  Also  I  think,  it  were  very  convenient  and  necessary  that  the 
Chancellor  of  London  were  spoken  unto,  no  more  to  assign  Father 
Forest  to  preach  at  Paul's  Cross.  Our  fathers  have  oftentimes 
assigned  me  to  associate  Father  Forest  when  he  hath  gone  forth  in 
preaching,  because  they  have  supposed  in  me  some  intelligence  and 
learning ;  and  many  a  time  when  he  hath  preached,  I  have  sitten  under 
the  pulpit  with  a  pair  of  red  ears,  because  I  have  heard  him  so  often 
break  Master  Priseian's  head;  therefore,  in  my  judgment,  it  is  more 
convenient  for  him  to  sit  at  home  with  his  beads  than  to  go  forth 
and  preach.  Also,  I  pray  your  Alastership,  have  me  meekly  recom- 
mended unto  my  Lady  Marquess  of  Pembroke  (Anne  Boleyn),  unto 
whom  I  am  much  bound  unto,  and  also  that  poor  mother  of  mine, 
by  the  reason  of  her  charitable  benefits. 

On  another  occasion,  the  unworthy  friar  has  weighty 
accusations  to  make  against  FF.  Peyto,  Elstow,  Forest,  and 
others.  He  is  anxious  to  tell  Cromwell  all  he  knows,  in 
order  to  ease  his  "heart  sore  to  see,  perceive,  and  know  the 
unkindness  and  duplicity  of  Father  Forest  against  the 
King's  Grace,"  who  has  bestowed  so  many  benefits  on  the 
provincial  and  on  the  whole  community.  "The  word 
'duplicity,'  "  Stone  remarks,  "is  characteristic  of  the 
writer's  confused  state  of  mind ;  he  apparenth'  estimates  the 
value  of  a  conscience  at  the  price  of  'a  great  piece  of  beef,' 

15.  Stone  (p.  8)  observes  that  "  'Father  Larans'  was  probably  a  cer- 
tain Friar  Laurence,  whom  Father  Forest  apparently  succeeded  in  turning 
out.  There  is  a  letter  among  the  Cotton  manuscripts  from  John  Laurence 
to  Cromwell,  relative  to  his  return  to  his  cloister,  the  King  having  seem- 
ingly ordered  the  Greenwich  Franciscans  to  take  him  back.  In  this  letter, 
he  begs  Cromwell  to  insist  on  his  being  lodged  in  a  certain  room,  in  which 
he  will  have  access  to  the  outside  world,  be  comparatively  uncontrolled, 
and  have  freedom  to  correspond  about  the  'King's  matter.'  He  entreats 
him  not  to  allow  him  to  be  sent  back  to  his  old  quarters."  Later,  as  Camra 
notes  (p.  181),  this  Laurence  gave  evidence  against  FF.  Rich  and  Risby 
in  the  affair  of  the  Holy  Maid  of  Kent. 


146  FRANCISCANS  AND 

which  Father  Forest  had  received  as  a  present,  'from  the 
king's  table.'  " 

During  the  year  1532,  rumors  of  Henry's  proposed  mar- 
riage with  Anne  Boleyn  M'ere  sweeping  like  threatening 
clouds  over  the  country.  Gloomy  presentiments  weighed  on 
the  hearts  of  the  people  who  knew  the  strong  will  of  their 
sovereign.  Catherine  no  longer  resided  with  him  in  the 
palace  at  Greenwich.  Anne  Boleyn  already  occupied  the 
apartments  of  the  rejected  queen,  and  it  was  felt  throughout 
the  length  and  breadth  of  England  that  Henry  would  eventu- 
ally espouse  her  and  have  her  crowned  queen,  no  matter 
what  the  ecclesiastical  court  at  Rome  would  decide  regard- 
ing his  former  marriage  with  Catherine. 

Owing  to  the  proximity  of  their  convent  to  the  royal 
palace,  it  was  but  natural  that  the  Greenwich  friars  should 
frequently  converse  among  themselves  on  the  king's  matter. 
Little  did  they  suspect  that  in  their  very  midst  was  one  who 
stood  in  secret  correspondence  with  the  queen 's  enemies,  and 
who  was  constantly  reporting  their  utterances  to  headquar- 
ters. Cromwell,  anxious  to  establish  himself  in  the  royal 
favor,  was  not  slow  to  acquaint  the  king  with  Lyst's  venom- 
ous depositions.  This  explains  why  Henry,  once  so  well 
disposed  toward  the  friars,  now  began  to  hate  them,  espe- 
cially those  of  Greenwich,  who  were  loudest  of  all  in  con- 
demning his  policy.  Though  he  still  feigned  friendly  feel- 
ings toward  the  provincial,  in  his  heart  he  was  determined 
to  let  him  feel  his  displeasure.  As  confessor  of  Queen 
Catherine,  he  thought,  Forest  might  have  induced  her  to 
submit  to  the  royal  will.  Instead,  he  had  all  along  favored 
her  cause,  had  exhorted  his  brethren  to  do  likewise,  and  had 
even  forbidden  Fr.  Laurence  to  preach  the  opposite.  He 
must  thwart  the  influence  of  this  obstinate  and  loud- 
mouthed friar.  Accordingly,  in  the  summer  of  1532,  the 
minister  general  of  the  Order  received  a  letter  from  the 
English  king,  demanding  that  he  depose  the  Franciscan  pro- 
vincial and  appoint  in  his  stead  Fr.  John  de  la  Haye,  of 
Flanders,  who  would  be  unbiased  in  his  view  on  the  impor- 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  147 

tant  question.  The  minister  general  prudently  evaded  the 
difficulty  by  replying  that  he  had  no  power  to  depose  a  pro- 
vincial, but  would  send  the  desired  friar  as  commissary  gen- 
eral to  England.^'" 

The  commissary  general  did  not  arrive  till  the  following 
spring.  In  the  meantime,  Lyst  continued  his  vile  deposi- 
tions, and  Forest,  it  seems,  was  repeatedly  summoned  before 
the  king  to  answer  for  the  conduct  of  his  subjects.  At  a 
chapter  of  the  province,^^  held  in  August,  1532,  the  provin- 
cial informed  the  assembled  friars  that  the  king  was  greatly 
displeased  with  them ;  that  he  had  even  been  tldnking  of  sup- 
pressing their  Order  in  England ;  that  he  would  desist  for 
the  present,  however,  being  satisfied  with  his  (Forest's)  read- 
iness to  have  the  minister  general  replace  him  by  a  friar  of 
Henry's  choice.  "All  this,"  observes  Camm,  "reflects  no 
little  credit  on  Forest,  who,  it  is  clear,  played  a  considerable 
part  in  these  conciliatory  measures,  without  in  any  way 
compromising  his  own  high  principles. '  '^* 

On  September  26,  1532,  the  Franciscan  friars  held  chap- 
ter at  Richmond.  This  we  learn  from  a  "warrant  under 
the  sign  manual  to  Cromwell  as  master  of  the  jewels,  to 
deliver  to  the  Friars  Observants,  now  at  their  chapter  at 
Richmond,  to  be  employed  as  alms,  L6,  13s,  4d."^^  What- 
ever may  have  been  transacted  at  this  chapter,  we  are  not 
inclined  to  believe  that  the  friars  consented  to  the  election 
of  a  new  minister  provincial.  They  were  too  much  in  sym- 
pathy with  Forest  to  accede  to  the  wishes  of  the  king  for 
his  removal  from  office.-"     The  following  February,  shortly 

10.   Parkinson,  p.  227. 

17.  This  was  perhaps  the  chapter  at  which  all  the  members  of  the 
Order  in  England  were  assembled. 

18.  Compare  this  statement  with  the  author's  assumption  regarding 
Forest's  supposed  temporary  submission. 

19.  Thaddeus,  p.  15. 

20.  Here,  it  is  true,  one  of  Cromwell's  letters,  dated  September  13, 
1532  (see  Thaddeus,  p.  14),  confronts  us  with  a  difficulty.  On  the  reverse 
of  this  letter  is  found  a  brief  note  in  which  Cromwell  lists  the  six  Fran- 
ciscan friaries  with  the  names  of  their  respective  wardens  or  guardians 
and  places  Fr.  Peyto  (Peyton)  at  the  head  of  the  list  as  minister.  Although 
this  note  does  seem  to  have  some  connection  with  the  chapter  held  on  Sep- 
teml)er  26,  1532,  at  Richmond,  still  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  Cromwell 
was  correctly  informed  as  to  the  results  of  the  chaptei-.     What  was  more 


148  FRANCISCANS  AND 

after  Henry's  marriage  with  Anne  Boleyn,  the  provincial 
was  again  at  court.  But  Lyst  had  previously  apprised 
Cromwell  of  Forest's  coming,  and  had  supplied  him  with 
serious  accusations  against  the  friars.  It  was,  therefore, 
with  mingled  feelings  of  sorrow  and  alarm  that,  on  return- 
ing to  the  convent,  the  man  of  God  called  his  brethren  to- 
gether and  told  them  how  coldly  he  had  been  received  at 
court,  and  how  enraged  the  king  was  at  the  entire  com- 
munity.-i  But  he  was  none  the  less  determined  to  con- 
tinue on  his  course  of  action ;  and  we  may  take  it  for  granted 
that,  in  his  zeal  for  the  spiritual  welfare  of  his  brethren,  he 
exhorted  them  faithfully  to  pursue  the  path  of  duty  and  to 
bear  up  like  true  sons  of  St.  Francis  under  the  trials  and 
afflictions  that  were  sure  to  overwhelm  them  in  the  near 
future. 

It  must  have  been  early  in  1533  that  Forest  with  deep 
sorrow  became  aware  of  Lyst's  treachery.  The  informing 
lay  brother,  on  his  part,  was  racked  with  fear  and  remorse 
when  he  learned  that  his  misdeeds  were  laid  bare.  In  April, 
he  wrote  to  Cromwell,  requesting  that  his  previous  letters 
be  burned,  lest  their  contents  be  turned  against  him.  At  the 
same  time,  he  pleaded  for  the  minister's  and  the  king's  pro- 
tection. Forest,  he  complained,  would  have  nothing  more 
to  do  with  him  and  refused  to  answer  him,  when  he  offered 
"to  make  some  amends  unto  God  and  to  the  religion  whom 
he  hath  offended."  Little  faith,  however,  must  be  placed  in 
this  accusation  against  the  saintly  friar.  If  he  really  did 
treat  the  informer  harshly,  it  was  only  to  try  him.  How 
insincere  Lyst  was,  we  can  judge  from  a  letter  he  addressed 
to  Cromwell  soon  after  the  arrival  of  the  commissary  gen- 
eral.    He  writes: 

natural  under  the  circumstances  than  that  the  friars  should  for  the  present 
at  least  keep  the  name  of  their  minister  provincial  secret  from  royal  offi- 
cials? Moreover,  this  note  is  perhaps  merely  a  plan  of  Cromwell's,  showing 
what  he  would  wish  when  once  Fr.  Forest  should  be  removed  from  his  office 
as  provincial.  In  fact,  this  theory  becomes  quite  probable  when  we  remem- 
ber how  willing  Forest  was  to  have  the  minister  general  send  one  to  rule 
the  province  in  his  stead. 
21.  Camm,  pp.  279  seq. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  149 

There  is  a  good  father  of  our  religion,  a  Frenchman,  come  from 
beyond  sea  unto  us,  which  is  chosen  and  assigned  to  be  our  minister, 
head,  and  ruler,  here  in  this  province,  and  I  trust  he  shall  do  much 
good  among  us,  if  he  will  be  indifferent  secundum  veritatem,  as  I  trust 
he  will,  and  help  to  reform  Father  Forest  especially,  and  also  some 
other  things  to  be  reformed  among  us.  And  so,  if  it  were  the  King 's 
pleasure  and  yours,  good  it  were  and  also  convenient,  the  King's 
Grace  and  also  your  Mastersliip  to  speak  with  our  foresaid  new 
minister,  and  to  inform  him  under  what  manner  he  should  use  him- 
self among  us  concerning  the  King's  gracious  honour.  Also  if  it 
were  your  pleasure  to  help  to  reform  Father  Forest,  and  to  get  him 
removed  out  of  this  house,  either  to  Newark  or  to  Newcastle,  I  think 
you  should  do  a  meritorious  deed,  and  have  great  reward  of  good 
therefor,  and  many  thanks  and  prayers  of  many  in  our  religion.  And 
as  for  my  part,  I  have  done,  and  yet  will  do  as  much  as  is  in  me  po^s- 
sible,  to  the  furtherance  and  accomplishment  of  the  same,  with  the 
grace  of  Jesu,  who  have  you  in  His  blessed  keeping.     Amen. 

During  Lent,  the  commissary  general  arrived,  and  at  a 
chapter  held  soon  after  he  was  recognized  as  provincial.^- 
To  ensure  the  removal  of  Forest  from  the  vicinity  of  Green- 
wich and  of  the  royal  court,  Lyst  had  resorted  to  base 
trickery.  He  drew  up  a  lengthy  statement  containing  all 
the  calumnies  his  black  heart  could  fabricate  against  his 
worthy  fellow  friar.  Having  sent  this  statement  to  Crom- 
well, he  laid  a  copy  of  it  before  the  new  provincial.  Thus 
the  latter,  no  longer  free  to  act  as  justice  demanded,  was  in 
some  way  forced  to  sacrifice  Forest,  in  order  to  avoid  greater 
difQculties.  "Indeed,"  says  Camm,  "so  wrongly  were 
things  now  ordered,  that  it  would  seem  as  though  the  destiny 
of  the  noblest  father  in  the  province  were  decided  by  the 
whim  of  the  basest  brother."-^  In  May,  Lyst  informed 
Cromwell  that  "Father  Forest,  your  little  friend  and  less 
lover,  and  mine  also,  for  all  his  great  cracks"  had  been  re- 
moved from  Greenwich.  The  worthless  renegade  added  that 
his  letter  incriminating  Forest  had  been  duly  considered 
by  the  new  minister  and  by  all  the  fathers  of  the  house,  who 

22.  Perhaps  this  was  the  chapter  which  Fr.  Peyto  attended  as  warden 
of  Greenwich  on  the  day  after  his  sermon  against  the  king's  proposed  mar- 
riage with  Anne  Boleyn. 

23.  Camm,  Vol.  I,  p.  250. 


150  FRANCISCANS  AND 

in  consequence  had  removed  Forest  to  a  convent  in  the 
North.  "This,"  Stone  observes,  "is  so  obviously  the  testi- 
mony of  a  false  witness  that  we  need  be  at  no  great  pains 
to  refute  it.  There  is  absolutely  no  evidence  to  show  that 
Father  Forest  was  ever  out  of  favour  with  his  brethren,  but 
that,  on  the  contrary,  if  we  except  the  conduct  of  a  few  rene- 
gades such  as  Lyst  and  Laurence,  we  find  the  greatest 
unanimity  among  them  with  regard  to  Henry's  marriage 
with  Catherine.  "2* 

Bitter  anguish  rent  the  soul  of  Forest  when  he  beheld  to 
what  a  pass  the  king 's  ' '  secret  affair ' '  had  come.  The  storm 
of  persecution,  he  felt,  was  inevitable.  Soon  it  would  spell 
d^ath  and  destruction  for  the  Order  he  loved  so  tenderly  and 
for  the  Church  for  whose  welfare  he  had  labored  so  long. 
What  pained  him  most  was  the  thought  that  one  of  his  own 
brethren  had  wantonly  severed  the  ties  that  bound  him  to  the 
law  of  God  and  to  the  Rule  of  St.  Francis,  and  that  he  was 
bartering  his  immortal  soul  to  gain  the  favor  of  a  corrupt 
and  godless  court.  As  to  his  own  removal  from  office,  he 
looked  upon  it  as  a  special  favor  from  Heaven.  Now  he  was 
free  from  weighty  cares  and  responsibilities,  and  had  ample 
time  to  devote'  himself  entirely  to  prayer  and  penance. 
Many  an  hour  he  knelt  before  his  hidden  God  in  the  taber- 
nacle, wrapt  in  fervent  prayer  for  the  king,  that  he  might 
leave  the  path  of  iniquity;  for  the  queen,  that  she  might 
carry  her  cross  with  patience  and  perseverance ;  for  the  un- 
fortunate lay  brother,  that  he  might  see  his  mistake  and 
repent  in  time ;  for  his  other  brethren  and  for  himself,  that 
they  might  remain  firm  in  the  hour  of  trial  when  they  should 
be  called  upon  to  choose  between  the  holy  law  of  God  and  the 
wicked  demand  of  the  king.  What  joy  and  pride  must  have 
thrilled  his  loyal  heart  on  learning  that  FF.  Peyto  and 
Elstow  had  boldly  upbraided  the  king  for  his  lawless  policy, 
and  rather  than  deny  their  sacred  trust,  had  gladly  gone 
into  exile. 

It  is  not  known  for  certain  to  which  convent  in  the  North 

24.  Stone,  p.  12. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  151 

Forest  was  transferred,  nor  how  long  he  remained  there. 
Perhaps  it  was  at  this  time  that  he  undertook  to  write  his 
book  in  defence  of  the  Church  and  of  the  Pope.  Beginning 
with  the  words,  ' '  Let  no  man  take  the  honor  to  himself,  but 
he  that  is  called  by  God,  as  Aaron  was,"  the  book  is  a 
strong  invective  against  the  king's  usurping  of  the  spiritual 
supremacy,  which  belonged  to  the  Pope  alone.  Whether 
this  had  anything  to  do  with  the  friar's  imprisonment  in 
1534,  is  not  elear.^^  There  is  little  doubt,  however,  that 
Henry  was  enraged  when  he  heart  of  it,-^  so  that,  when  late 
in  the  spring  of  that  year,  he  determined  to  imprison  the 
Franciscans  and  confiscate  their  convents,  Forest  was  among 
the  first  to  suffer.  That  he  was  in  prison  in  1534,  seems  quite 
certain  from  an  official  report  in  which  the  man  of  God  is 
mentioned  as  being  "there  (London)  in  prison."  To  this 
Gasquet  remarks,  "Perhaps  the  most  conclusive  proof  that 
he  was  probably  in  prison  at  this  time  is  that  we  hear  no 
more  about  him.  Cromwell's  'remembrances'  are  silent 
about  this  formidable  opponent."-"  Neither  is  it  certain 
whether  he  was  in  an  ecclesiastical  or  a  civil  prison.  Possi- 
bly, he  Avas  at  first  detained  in  the  convent  of  the  Grey 
Friars  on  the  North  Side  of  Newgate  Street  in  London,  and 
late  in  1534  was  cast  into  Newgate  prison  for  again  refusing 
to  take  the  oath  of  supremacy,  which,  we  know,  became  law 
on  November  18  of  that  year. 

Slanderous  tongues  did  not  scruple  at  the  time  to  be- 
smirch the  name  of  Forest,  so  widely  known  for  sanctity  and 
learning.  Hall's  Chronicle  was  especially  influential  in 
spreading  these  libels  and  leading  later  historians  into 
error.-^  Thus  Wood  avers  that  Forest  had  taken  the  oath 
of  royal  supremacy,  while  Stow  contends  that  the  friar 
himself  later  admitted  he  had  taken  the  oath  only  with  the 

25.  Bourchier,  Hist.  Eccle.  de  Mart.  FF.  Ord.  D.  Francisci,  pp.  31  seq. 
Though  later  historians  say  that  Forest  wrote  this  book  in  Newgate,  Bour- 
chier speaiis  of  it  rather  as  one  of  the  causes  that  led  to  the  martyr's 
imprisonment. 

26.  Stone,  p.  56,  on  the  authority  of  Wood. 

27.  Gasquet,  Vol.  I,  p.  167. 

28.  Stone,  pp.  19  seq. 


152  FRANCISCANS  AND 

outer  man,  but  never  consented  thereto  in  conscience.^^  ' '  If 
this  were  true,"  declares  Stone,  "it  would  be  in  such  direct 
opposition  to  all  that  we  know  of  Father  Forest's  firmness 
under  trial,  of  his  strength  of  character,  his  sincerity  and 
fearlessness,  that  his  life  would  be  a  hopeless  tangle  of  con- 
tradictions. It  would  have  been  so  poor  a  preparation  for 
a  martyr's  death,  that  instead  of  the  cry  of  jubilation  with 
which  he  greeted  the  fire  and  gallows,  we  should  expect  to 
hear  him  bartering  for  his  life  at  the  stake.  But  one  who 
had  stood  up  and  publicly  denounced  his  brethren,  for  their 
resistance  to  the  representative  of  the  Pope,  one  who,  in  the 
face  of  the  king's  ruthless  passion,  had  persisted  in  an  atti- 
tude which  said  as  plainly  as  words  could  say,  'It  is  not  law- 
ful for  thee  to  have  this  woman  to  wife, '  was  not  the  man  to 
condescend  to  a  mean  subterfuge,  in  order  to  save  a  life 
which  he  had  repeatedly  exposed  with  greatest  indifference. 
He  was  by  his  position,  by  his  acknowledged  virtue,  and  by 
his  talents,  a  leader  of  men.  Through  his  influence,  the 
friars  of  Greenwich  had  been  guided  safely  through  the 
shoals  and  quicksands  of  the  divorce  and  the  royal  suprem- 
acy, and  if  he  had  succumbed  with  his  '  outer  man, '  he  would 
have  been  the  only  member  of  his  community  to  take  the 
oath.  "3° 

We  may  take  it  for  granted  that  the  king's  agents  re- 
peatedly visited  Forest  in  prison  and  did  all  in  their  power 
to  win  him  over  to  Henry's  cause.  The  faithful  and  fear- 
less friar  w'as  as  staunch  in  his  allegiance  to  God  and  to  his 
Order  as  the  royal  commissioners  were  zealous  in  the  service 
of  Henry  and  of  their  own  interests.  He  gloried  in  the 
thought  of  dying  for  the  faith,  as  FF.  Rich  and  Risby  had 
done  but  a  twelvemonth  before. ^^  Never,  with  the  help  of 
God,  would  he  prove  disloyal  in  a  cause  for  which  they  had 
laid  down  their  life.  Cromwell  fully  realized  this ;  he  gave 
orders  that  the  friar's  durance  be  made  more  severe  and  at 

29.  Sm  Parkinson,  p.  243 ;  Gasquet,  Vol,  I,  p.  195,  footnote. 

30.  Stone,  p.  48,  citing  Canon  Dixon's  History  of  the  Church  of 
England. 

31.  See  chapter  IV. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  153 

last  had  him  condemned  to  death.  Though  for  some  rea- 
son the  sentence  was  not  immediately  carried  out,  the  fact 
that  it  had  been  passed  on  him,  is  sufficiently  attested  by  the 
letter  he  wrote  to  Queen  Catherine  three  days  before  his 
martyrdom  was  to  take  place. ^- 

During  his  confinement  in  Newgate,  he  received  a  letter 
from  Lady  Elizabeth  Hammond,  at  one  time  his  penitent 
and  now  lady  in  waiting  on  the  queen.  In  his  letter,  he  is 
told  how  the  queen  is  grieved  and  alarmed  over  his  impend- 
ing doom^ ;  that  he  should  try  to  escape  from  prison,  if  possi- 
ble, lest  the  queen  fall  into  an  illness  that  would  prove  fatal. 
To  this  the  holy  man  replied : 

My  Daughter,  Elizabeth  Hammond: — 

I  am,  indeed,  sorely  grieved  at  the  sorrow  which  you  and  your 
mistress  feel  about  the  pains  I  am  enduring,  just  as  if  there  were 
no  resurrection  unto  glory.  These  are  certainly  not  principles  which 
among  other  lessons  of  piety  I  have  frequently  impressed  upon  you; 
if  they  are,  however,  then  know  that  at  the  time  I  was  erring  wide 
of  the  true  road.  Were  I  willing  to  barter  my  faith  and  deliver 
myself  to  the  de\'il,  from  fear  of  suffering  or  from  a  desire  for  the 
riches  of  this  world,  I  could  without  doubt  easily  escape ;  do  thou,  how- 
ever, not  entertain  such  thoughts.  Learn,  therefore,  to  suffer  for  the 
true  teaching  of  Christ  and  for  his  spouse  and  thy  mother,  the  Church, 
and  do  not  attempt  to  turn  me  from  those  torments  by  which  I  hope 
to  obtain  eternal  happiness. 

Follow,  I  beseech  you,  in  the  footsteps  of  the  Queen,  your  mis- 
t'-ess,  imitating  the  glorious  example  you  see  in  her,  and  pray  for  me, 
that  they  may  increase  the  severity  of  the  torments  which  they  intend 
to  inflict  on  me,  since  they  are  but  small  when  compared  with  the 
glory  of  God  which  they  are  to  further.33 

About  1536,  as  we  have  already  heard,  a  number  of  events 
combined  to  cool  for  a  time  at  least  Henry's  rage  against  the 
first  opponents  of  his  tj^rannical  and  bloody  measures.  Pos- 
sibly at  this  juncture,  Fr.  Forest,  like  other  members  of  the 
province,  was  permitted  to  leave  Newgate  and  to  take  up 

32.  See  the  foregoing  chapter. 

33.  Bourchler,  pp.  61  seq. 


154  FRANCISCANS  AND 

his  abode  with  the  Grey  Friars  in  London,^*  Mental  and 
bodily  sufferings  had  greatly  enfeebled  him,  and  the  king 
perhaps  was  still  in  hopes  that  clemency  on  his  part  and  the 
influence  of  others  less  faithful  would  in  the  end  triumph 
over  the  aged  friar.  How  Forest  lived  in  the  London  con- 
vent we  learn  from  the  memorandum  of  Lord  Mordaunt  who, 
in  1537,  made  his  Easter  confession  to  him.^^  Subject  to  the 
Conventual  warden,  a  nominee  of  the  king,  Forest  led  a  lif-e 
of  seclusion  and  prayer.  Most  conscientiously  he  observed 
the  vow  of  poverty.  He  refused  to  take  any  remuneration 
from  Lord  Mordaunt,  referring  him  to  the  porter,  who  had 
charge  of  all  money  matters.  He  was  not  allowed  to  preach, 
but  said  the  Lady 's  Mass  every  day  and  was  much  engaged 
in  the  confessional.  On  the  question  of  the  king's  usurped 
supremacy,  he  was  silent  except  where  duty  forced  him  to 
speak. 

Though  the  friar's  outward  conduct  gave  his  enemies 
little  chance  for  accusations,  at  heart  he  was  as  loyal  and 
zealous  as  ever.  Cromwell  was  anything  but  satisfied  with 
Forest's  condition  in  the  London  friary.  Wholly  bent  on 
bringing  him  to  the  scaffold,  he  not  only  engaged  spies  to 
watch  him,  but  even  went  so  far  as  to  abuse  the  Sacrament 
of  Confession.  The  afore-mentioned  memorandum  of  Lord 
-Mordaunt  is  nothing  less  than  a  deposition  regarding  For- 
est's procedure  in  the  sacred  tribunal  of  Penance.^®  Previ- 
ous to  the  spring  of  1538,  however,  nothing  but  vague  and 
incoherent  rumors  could  be  gathered,  until  finally  Crom- 
well struck  upon  a  diabolical  plan.  One  day,  while  Forest 
was  hearing  confessions,  a  certain  Waferer  entered  the 
sacred  tribunal.  After  making  some  sort  of  confession,  the 
vile  wretch  complained  that  his  conscience  was  troubling  him 

34.  This,  we  think,  accounts  for  Forest's  liberation  from  Newgate  and 
for  his  subsequent  sojourn  in  the  London  friary  as  satisfactorily  as  the 
supposition,  made  by  some  historians,  that  he  toolc  the  oath  with  the  saving 
clause,  as  far  as  Christ's  law  allows,  a  supposition  entirely  irreconcilable 
with  the  friar's  previous  and  subsequent  conduct  regarding  the  oath. 

35.  The  memorandum  is  quoted  in  full  by  Camm,  Vol.  I,  pp.  293  seq. 
It  is  dated  February  23,  1538.  This  date,  however,  "must  not  be  taken  as 
that  on  which  the  incident  happened,  but  as  that  on  which  the  memoran- 
dum was  written."     Thaddeus,  p.  15. 

36.  Camm,  Vol.  I,  p.  295. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  155 

ever  since  he  had  taken  the  oath  of  supremacy.  Exhorted 
by  the  man  of  God  to  repent  of  his  sin  and  to  trust  in  the 
mercy  of  God,  the  hypocrite  asked  the  unsuspecting  friar 
whether  he,  too,  had  taken  the  oath.  "  No, "  came  the  ready 
reply,  "I  would  rather  burn  than  swear  such  a  thing." 
This  was  enough.  "Thank  you,"  replied  Waferer,  "I  do 
not  wish  to  know  more. ' '  With  this  he  rose  from  his  knees 
and  reported  the  matter  to  headquarters.^^ 

Now  Cromwell  and  his  clique  had  positive  proof  that 
Forest  was  dissuadiug  penitents  from  taking  the  oath. 
"Without  delay,  the  priest  was  summoned  before  the  Privy 
Council,  over  which  Cromwell  presided.  With  great 
courage  and  skill  he  again  defended  the  papal  supremacy,  at 
the  same  time  maintaining  strict  silence  on  all  matters  that 
pertained  to  the  seal  of  confession,  lest  he  unwittingly  impli- 
cate his  penitents.  "He  succeeded  in  saving  others,"  re- 
marks Camm,  ' '  though  his  bold  confession  of  the  Faith,  the 
boldest  perhaps  that  we  have  of  any  martyr  of  this  period, 
cost  him  his  life."^^  Cromwell  in  his  blind  fury  was  not 
satisfied  with  having  him  die  the  death  of  a  traitor ;  he  would 
have  him  convicted  of  heresy  and  burned  at  the  stake.^^ 

For  the  present,  the  helpless  victim  of  base  deceit  was 
lodged  in  a  solitary  dungeon  in  Newgate.  Here  he  under- 
went all  the  horrors  and  hardships  that  hatred  and  cruelty 
could  devise.  His  hands  and  feet  were  bound  with  iron 
chains,  and  for  several  days  he  was  left  there  suffering  the 
greatest  misery.*"  His  condition  must  have  been  most 
pitiable.  He  was  now  sixty-seven  years  of  age,  and  his 
health  was  much  impaired  by  the  sorrow  and-  worry  of  the 
last  few  years.  He  greeted  his  solitude,  however,  as  a  spe- 
cial favor  from  above  and  employed  his  time  preparing  for 
the  final  struggle. 

37.  Stone,  p.  52. 

38.  Camm,  Vol.  I,  p.  297. 

39.  This  is  evident  from  the  Excerpts  of  Forest's  so-called  Confessions, 
I.e.,  the  examination  he  was  subjected  to  before  the  Privy  Council.  Crom- 
well's mind  in  this  regard  is  further  clear  from  Cranmer's  letter  written 
to  him  on  April  6,  1538.     See  Camm,  Vol.  I,  p.  301. 

40.  See  Bourchier,  p.  39. 


156  FRANCISCANS  AND 

On  May  8,  after  a  month  of  woful  durance  in  Newgate, 
Forest  was  arraigned  before  Cranmer's  court  at  Lambeth. 
He  realized  that  this  was  the  beginning  of  the  "greater  com- 
bat," as  he  chose  to  call  it  in  a  letter  to  Bl.  Thomas  Abel,*^ 
one  of  his  former  penitents.  Raising  his  eyes  to  heaven  he 
prayed  with  all  the  ardor  of  his  soul,  "I  give  thee  thanks. 
Lord  God,  who  hast  deigned  to  call  me,  a  most  miserable 
sinner,  to  the  singular  privilege  of  professing  to-day,  here 
in  the  presence  of  all,  the  true  faith  that  I  cherish,  and  of 
freely  declaring  what  I  hold  regarding  thy  pure,  unsullied, 
and  only  spouse,  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  For  the 
threats  of  the  king,  I  fear  not,  nor  consider  the  torments 
that,  no  doubt,  are  awaiting  me  on  account  of  my  faith ; 
and  so  far  am  I  from  seeking  and  striving  after  earthly  hon- 
ors that  I  will  not  accept  them,  but  will  gladly  suffer 
death.  "*2 

After  the  usual  court  preliminaries.  Forest  was  ordered 
to  abjure  as  "most  abominable  heresies"  four  articles  which 
on  Cranmer's  suggestion  had  been  drawn  up  with  a  view 
to  indicting  him  for  heresy.     The  four  articles  read : 

1.  That  the  Holy  Catholic  Church  was  the  Church  of  Rome,  and 
that  we  ought  to  believe  out  of  the  same; 

2.  That  we  should  believe  in  the  Pope's  pardon  for  the  remis- 
sion of  sins; 

3.  That  we  ought  to  believe  and  do  as  our  fathers  have  done 
aforetime  fourteen  years  past; 

4.  That  a  priest  may  turn  and  change  the  pains  of  hell  of  a 
sinner,  truly  penitent,  contrite  of  his  sins,  by  certain  penance  enjoined 
him  in  (to)  the  pains  of  purgatory. — Which  said  articles  be  most 
abominable  heresies,  blasphemy  against  God,  and  contrary  to  Scrip- 
ture and  the  teaching  of  Christ  and  His  Apostles,  and  to  abhor  any 
true  Christian  heart  to  think.43 

41.  He  was  a  secular  priest,  a  man  of  eminent  sanctity  and  learning, 
and  from  the  start  a  staunch  advocate  of  Queen  Catherine's  rights,  who 
had  appointed  him  her  chaplain  and  director  of  music.  In  1533,  when  the 
case  of  the  Holy  Maid  of  Kent  came  up,  he  was  imprisoned,  but  later  set 
free.  He  openly  defended  the  papal  supremacy,  for  which  he  was  again 
cast  into  prison  and  finally,  on  July  30,  1540,  martyred  at  Smlthfield.  His 
name  was  on  the  list  of  those  whom  Pope  Leo  XIII  enrolled  among  the 
Blessed  on  December  9,  1886. 

42.  Bourchler,  p.  45. 

43.  Camm,  Vol.  I,  p.  302,  quoting  from  Wrlothesley's  Chronicle. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  157 

Although  he  clearly  foresaw  what  the  sequel  would  be, 
the  fearless  friar  declined  to  make  the  required  abjuration. 
He  was  convinced  that  the  first  three  articles  embody  Cath- 
olic doctrine;  and  as  to  the  fourth,  he  readily  detected  its 
insidious  character  and  firmly  refused  to  forswear  it  in  its 
proposed  form.  Accordingly  he  was  remanded  to  Newgate. 
His  confinement  now  became  less  severe,  if  Latimer's  sus- 
picions are  correct.  Latimer  writing  to  Cromwell,  on  May 
18,**  claimed  he  had  heard  that  Forest  was  permitted  to 
confer  with  others  imprisoned  for  the  faith  and  even  to  hear 
holy  Mass  and  receive  the  sacraments.  Probably,  the  jailer 
admired  and  felt  for  the  feeble  old  friar  bearing  his  suffer- 
ings so  patiently,  and  allowed  him  such  liberties  as  were 
compatible  wdth  his  own  safety.  Perhaps,  too,  it  was  only 
a  last  attempt  on  the  part  of  Forest's  enemies  to  cajole  him 
into  submission.  Be  this  as  it  may,  prayer  and  meditation 
strengthened  the  man  of  God  in  his  determination  bravely 
to  fight  the  good  fight  to  the  end.  In  vain,  therefore,  the 
royal  officials  came  to  him  in  prison  and  demanded  that  he 
sign  the  abjuration  of  the  four  articles.  Neither  threats  nor 
promises  could  shake  his  constancy.  "With  equal  intrepidity 
he  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  Cromwell  directing  that  he  attend 
Latimer's  sermon  at  St.  Paul's  Cross,  on  May  12,  and  do 
public  penance  for  his  heresies.*^  Needless  to  say,  this  un- 
compromising attitude  of  the  loyal  friar  infuriated  his 
enemies.  He  was  forthwith  pronounced  a  confirmed  heretic 
and  sentenced  to  die  at  the  stake.  In  his  afore-mentioned 
letter  to  Cromwell  Latimer  consented  "to  play  the  fool" 
and  preach  the  sermon  at  Forest's  burning. 

Before  relating  the  details  of  the  glorious  martyrdom 
that  crowned  the  beautiful  life  of  Bl.  John  Forest,  we  must 
examine  whether  he  verbally  abjured  the  four  articles  and 
declared  his  willingness  to  do  public  penance  at  St.  Paul's 
cross,  as  Camm  seems  inclined  to  believe.*^     The  only  au- 

44.  For  a  copy  of  this  letter  see  Camm,  Vol.  I,  p.  312. 

45.  See  Camm,  Vol.  I,  pp.  310  seq. 

46.  "Though  the  articles,"  Camm  remarks,  "were  signed  In  writing, 
the  'abjuration'   or  'submis.sion'   was  by  word   of  mouth   only.      If  it    (the 


158  FRANCISCANS  AND 

thorities  for  this  story  are  Hall  and  Wriothesley.  Hall 
writes :  "He  was  after  sundry  examinations,  convinced  and 
confuted,  and  gladly  submitted  himself  to  abide  the  punish- 
ment of  the  Church."  Wriothesley 's  testimony  reads: 
"John  Forest,  Friar  Observant,  Doctor  of  Divinity  (was) 
adjured  for  heresie  on  the  eighth  day  of  the  month  of  May, 
at  Lambeth,  before  the  most  reverend  father  in  God,  Thomas 
Cranmer,  Archbishop  of  Canterburie,  with  other.  .  .  . 
The  articles  (were)  subscribed  with  his  own  hand  (and  he) 
sworn  and  abjured  on  the  same,  and  after  sworn  again  to 
abide  such  injunction  and  penance  as  he  should  be  enjoined 
by  the^  said  court, ' ' 

This  twofold  testimony,  so  derogatory  to  the  fair  name 
of  Forest  exerts  such  a  pressure  on  Camm  that  he  is  unable 
to  believe  the  affair  a  "mere  fabrication,"  since  "all  other 
chroniclers  support  it." 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  not  true  that  all  other  chroniclers 
support  it.  "Not  onl}^"  says  Stone,  "are  Sander  and 
Bourchier  silent  as  to  the  charge,  but  Foxe,  always  so  ready 
to  make  much  of  any  tale  to  the  discredit  of  Catholics,  makes 
no  mention  of  any  projected  penance  at  St.  Paul's  Cross. "*^ 
Neither  does  Collier  seem  to  know  anything  of  the  affair. 
He  simply  says,  "By  what  law  they  could  stretch  his  (For- 
est's) crime  to  heresy  is  hard  to  discover,  for  he  was  tried 
only  for  dissuading  his  penitents  in  confession  from  owning 
the  King's  Supremacy."'**  Of  more  modern  historians 
whose  works  we  have  been  able  to  consult,  Leon,  Guerin, 
Hope,  Gasquet,  Thaddeus,  Domenichelli  simply  ignore  the 
story,  Parkinson  and  Spillmaun  discard  it  as  incredible, 
while  Dodd  and  Stone  take  it  up  and  refute  it. 

But,  who  are  Hall  and  Wriothesley  whose  testimony 
Camm  dares  not  discard  as  a  "mere  fabrication"?  Hall 
was  a  contemporary  of  Henry  VIII ;  up  till  1533,  he  wrote 


■written  abjuration),"  he  adds,  "could  have  been  produced  (by  Latimer  on 
the  morning  of  Forest's  martyrdom),  it  certainly  would  have  been"  (p.  310, 
footnote). 

47.  Stone,  p.  64. 

48.  Gasquet,  Vol.  I,  p.  197. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  159 

on  passing  events.  When  he  ceased  to  write,  Richard  Graf- 
ton, a  bitter  Protestant,  indiscriminately  published  what 
Hall  had  collected,  whether  authenticated  or  not.*"  "The 
part  relative  to  Forest,"  as  Camm  himself  remarks,  "may 
have  been  based  upon  some  political  pamphlet  of  the 
time."^^  Hall,  therefore,  as  Stone  contends,  "is  not  re- 
sponsible for  the  statement  referring  to  Forest,"  and  since 
Grafton  declares  he  "added  nothing  of  his  own,"  the  sup- 
posed account  of  Hall  "and  the  story  told  by  Wriothesley 
four  years  later,  have  one  and  the  same  origin,  the  real  author 
remaining  incognito.  "^^  Why  Wriothesley  repeated  the 
libel  is  obvious.  For  he  "had  no  leaning  towards  the  re- 
ligious orders,  but  went  entirely  with  Henry  in  his  ruth- 
less nationalism  and  greed. '  '^^  Thus  the  extrinsic  evidence 
supporting  the  story  of  Forest's  verbal  abjuration  is  ex- 
tremely weak.  It  is  solely  based  on  the  assertion  of  men 
whose  testimony  is,  to  say  the  least,  questionable  for  the 
very  reason  that  they  were  contemporaries  of  the  friar  whom 
they  basely  maligned  and  of  the  king  whose  cause  they 
sought  to  further.  Hence  we  fail  to  understand  why  Camm 
finds  it  so  very  hard  to  "escape  the  conclusion  that,  what- 
ever Forest  may  have  done  or  said  on  May  the  8,  he  did  not 
'confess  the  faith'  with  credit  to  himself . ""^^ 

From  intrinsic  reasons  it  becomes  still  more  evident  that 
the  story  is  in  very  deed  "a  mere  fabrication,"  hatched  in 
the  biased  mind  of  some  obscure  political  agitator,  then  pub- 
lished as  Hall's  statement  by  a  malicious  bigot,  and  finally 
repeated  by  one  who  was  anything  but  fair  in  matters  that 
concerned  the  persecuted  friars.  How,  we  ask,  can  this 
supposed  momentary  weakness  of  the  heroic  martyr  be 
reconciled  with  his  characteristic  constancy  and  attested 
learning?  If  four  years  before  he  steadfastly  refused  to 
admit  the  king's  supremacy  in  matters  spiritual,  is  it  credi- 
ble that  he  would  have  acted  less  firmly  now  when  he  saw 
that  clear  and  express  tenets  of  his  holy  faith  were  at  stake, 

49.  See  Stone,  p.  50.  52.  Stone,  p.  63,  footnote  5. 

50.  Camm,  Vol.  I,  p.  325.  53.  Camm,  Vol.  I,  p.  309. 

51.  Stone,  p.  50. 


160  FRANCISCANS  AND 

and  when  he  realized  what  terrible  consequences  the  least 
weakness  on  his  part  would  necessarily  entail  on  himself,  on 
his  brethren,  and  on  the  whole  Church  in  England  ?  Had  he 
not  been  among  the  first  openly  to  oppose  the  king  in  his 
beastly  passion  and  towering  pride  ?  Had  he  not  seen  FF. 
Peyto  and  Elstow  go  into  exile,  and  FF.  Rich  and  Risby 
mount  the  scaffold  for  the  sake  of  truth  and  justice  ?  Had 
he  not,  like  a  solicitous  father,  warned  Queen  Catherine 
against  "that  pestilential  teaching  of  the  heretics?"  Was 
not  his  intrepid  zeal  in  her  cause  the  ever-recurring  refrain 
of  Lyst's  letters  to  Cromwell?  And  now  we  should  believe 
that  either  puzzled  by  difficulties  or  baffled  by  fear  he 
wavered  and  at  last  submitted,  and  that  in  a  cause  for  which 
he  himself  had  already  suffered  untold  hardships.  Indeed, 
he  was  advanced  in  years  and  broken  in  health,  but  none  the 
less  prudent  and  fearless.  Even  granting  that,  as  Camm 
thinks,  he  was  ' '  puzzled  by  the  difficulty  of  a  problem  before 
him,"  only  a  gross  misconception  of  the  friar's  character 
can  lead  one  to  believe  that  because  he  was  puzzled  he  gave 
in.  No,  in  that  case,  he  would  evidently  have  demanded  a 
written  statement  of  the  four  articles  together  with  sufficient 
leisure  to  study  and  weigh  the  fourth  one,  which  on  account 
of  its  studied  ambiguity  at  first  sight  presented  difficulties. 
Never,  at  least,  would  he  have  abjured  them  either  singly  or 
collectively  in  their  proposed  form. 

That  his  imprisonment  after  May  8  was  less  severe  than 
before,  is  by  no  means  certain.  In  his  letter  to  Cromwell, 
Latimer  says  only  that  he  has  heard  this  to  be  the  case,  and 
does  not  know  "whether  through  the  fault  of  the  sheriff  or 
the  goaler,  or  both. '  '^*  Then,  if  he  did  adjure,  why  did  not 
his  enemies  make  capital  out  of  it  for  the  purpose  of  dis- 
crediting him  in  the  eyes  of  the  people?  Moreover,  why 
was  he  sent  back  to  Newgate  at  all?  Would  not  the  con- 
vent of  the  Grey  Friars,  quite  subservient  to  the  will  of  the 
king,  have  been  a  far  more  suitable  place  to  bring  him  to  a 
full   submission?     Finally,  why  did  not  Latimer  on   the 

54.  The  letter  Is  quoted  by  Camm,  Vol.  I,  p.  312  ;  also  by  Stone,  p.  65. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  161 

morning  of  the  martyrdom  when  Forest  publicly  branded 
him  as  an  apostate,  retaliate  by  adducing  this  supposed 
verbal  abjuration  of  his  fearless  opponent?  Such  an  ex- 
posure would  certainly  have  gone  far  toward  rehabilitating 
the  confused  bishop,  and  would  have  dealt  the  fair  reputa- 
tion of  the  herioc  friar  a  telling  blow  in  the  eyes  of  the  vast 
concourse  of  people.  But  Latimer  made  no  mention  of  it 
whatever.  In  fact,  as  we  shall  see,  the  manner  of  his  pro- 
cedure during  the  disputation  was  entirely  that  of  a  man 
straining  every  nerve  to  wean  his  opponent  from  principles 
which  he  had  never  denied,  and  which  he  was  not  likely  to 
deny  now  though  the  most  dreadful  tortures  and  death 
stared  him  in  the  face. 

Confronted  by  this  overwhelming  evidence,  we  do  not 
hesitate  to  maintain  that  the  story  of  Forest 's  verbal  abjura- 
tion of  the  four  articles  is  wholly  "a  mere  fabrication"  of 
his  enemies,  a  base  libel  on  his  name  and  on  the  Order  to 
which  he  belonged.  Dodd  must  have  had  chroniclers  like 
Hall  and  Wriothesley  in  mind  when  he  wrote,  "Now  laying 
all  circumstances  together,  what  several  (not  all)  historians 
have  reported,  concerning  this  religious  man's  behaviour, 
will,  I  presume,  be  judged  rather  calumnies  than  real 
fact."" 

Like  one  whose  most  cherished  desire  was  about  to  be 
fulfilled,  the  valiant  champion  of  truth  and  justice  rejoiced 
on  learning  that  in  a  few  days  he  would  be  led  forth  to  die 
for  the  faith.  Early  Wednesday  morning,  May  22,  Crom- 
well's minions  entered  the  martyr's  dungeon.  Binding  his 
hands  and  feet,  Fr.  Marcos  tells  us,  they  fastened  the  aged 
friar  to  a  hurdle  and  dragged  him  from  Newgate  through 
the  streets  of  the  city  to  the  suburb  Smithfield.  What  tor- 
tures must  have  racked  his  feeble  and  emaciated  frame  on 
this  last  painful  journey.  How  he  must  have  prayed  for 
strength  when  arriving  at  the  place  of  martyrdom  he  beheld 
from  his  bed  of  pain  the  singular  spectacle  before  him  and 
heard  the  murmurings  of  the  surging  multitude.     From 

55.  Dodd,  Church  History  of  England  (Brussels,  1737),  Vol.  I,  p.  237. 


162  FRANCISCANS  AND 

Garcias  we  learn  that  a  proclamation  had  been  issued  in  the 
city,  inviting  the  people  to  attend  Latimer's  sermon,  which 
would  begin  at  eight  o'clock.  Wriothesley,  an  eyewitness 
of  the  scene,  tells  us  that  above  ten  thousand  citizens  had 
assembled  to  see  the  final  struggle  of  one  whose  fearless 
opposition  to  the  king  had  attracted  nation-wide  attention.^® 
Within  sight  of  the  convent  and  church  of  the  Grey 
Friars,  on  a  plot  of  ground  closed  in  by  a  railing,  stood  two 
platforms;  one  of  these  was  supplied  with  a  chair  for  the 
martyr,  while  the  other  had  a  sort  of  pulpit,  from  which 
Latimer  was  to  preach.  Near  the  martyr's  platform  was 
seen  a  huge  wooden  statue  of  St,  Dervel  Gadarn  (Darvell 
Gatheren).  It  was  so  large  that  eight  men  could  scarcely 
carry  it.  The  people  of  Llanderfel,  in  Wales,  had  held  it  in 
great  veneration  on  account  of  the  miracles  said  to  have 
been  wrought  through  the  intercession  of  the  Saint.  An 
old  prophecy  had  it  that  one  day  the  statue  would  set  fire  to 
a  forest.  Hence,  when  Ellis  Price  after  confiscating  it 
wrote  to  Cromwell  on  April  6, 1538,  for  further  instructions, 
the  spiteful  minister,  anxious  to  ridicule  the  Catholic  vener- 
ation of  images,  ordered  the  statue  to  be  brought  to  London 
and  to  be  used  at  the  burning  of  Bl.  John  Forest.  * '  It  is  a 
singular  fact,"  Thaddeus  observes,  "that  those  who  laughed 
at  the  prophecy,  ridiculed  miracles,  and  denied  the  truth  of 
the  Catholic  religion,  now  became,  as  it  were,  instruments  in 
the  hands  of  God  to  bring  about  at  least  the  apparent,  if 
not  the  true,  fulfillment  of  the  old  prediction.  "^^  From  the 
gibbet  erected  in  another  corner  of  the  enclosure,  dangled  a 
heavy  chain,  while  a  store  of  fagots  and  straw  lay  beneath 
it.  Above  it  was  fastened  a  placard  bearing  in  large  letters 
the  following  blasphemous  doggerel : 

David  Darvell  Gatheren, 
As  saith  the  Welshman, 
Fetched  outlaws  out  of  Hell; 

56.  See  Stone,  p.  66,  on  the  authority  of  Garcias,  a  Spanish  chronicler 
and  "undoubtedly  an  eye-witness  of  the  martyrdom." 

57.  Thaddeus,  p.  67. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  163 

Now  he  is  come  with  spere  and  shilde, 
In  harness  to  burn  in  Smithfielde, 
For  in  Wales  he  may  not  dwell. 

And  Forest  the  Friar, 
That  obstinate  liar, 

That  willfullie  shall  be  dead, 
In  his  contumacie 
The  gospel  doth  denie, 

The  King  to  be  supreme  head. 

Near  the  gate  of  St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital,  stood  an- 
other long  platform.  This  was  intended  for  the  Lords  of  the 
Privy  Council  and  for  the  city  mayor  and  other  men  of  civil 
authority  and  influence. 

On  reaching  Smithfield,  the  executioners  immediately 
loosened  their  victim  from  the  hurdle  and  led  him  to  the 
platform,  which  he  was  ordered  to  mount.  A  solemn  hush 
fell  on  the  vast  multitude  when  at  a  given  signal  Latimer 
ascended  the  pulpit  and  began  his  defence  of  royal  suprem- 
acy. No  doubt,  he  had  prepared  his  sermon  well  and  left 
no  argument  untouched  that  might  draw  the  friar  from  the 
faith  for  which  he  was  ready  to  die.  The  martyr  was  aware 
that  he  would  not  get  a  fair  hearing;  hence  during  the 
faithless  bishop's  tirade  against  the  Pope,  he  prudently 
kept  silence.^^  At  last,  after  preaching  over  an  hour,  Lati- 
mer turned  to  him  and  asked  in  what  state  he  would  die. 
At  this  Forest  arose  and  with  a  loud,  clear  voice  replied 
' '  that  if  an  angel  should  come  down  from  Heaven  and  show 
him  any  other  thing  than  he  had  believed  all  his  life  time 
past  he  would  not  believe  him,  and  that  if  his  body  should  be 
cut  joint  after  joint,  or  member  after  member,  brent,  hanged, 
or  what  pain  soever  might  be  done  to  his  body,  he  would 
never  turn  from  his  old  sect  of  this  Bishop  of  Rome. ' '  Then 
facing  Latimer  he  chid  him  saying,  ' '  that  seven  years  agone 
he  durst  not  have  made  such  a  sermon  for  his  life. '  '^^ 

But  Latimer  had  long  since  learned  to  stifle  the  voice  of 

58.  According  to  Fr.   Marcos,  Forest  tried   to  speak,  but  the  heretics 
made  so  much  noise  that  he  could  not  be  heard.     See  Camm,  Vol.  I,  p.  316. 

59.  Wriothesley,  quoted  by  Camm,  Vol.  I,  p.  316. 


164  FRANCISCANS  AND 

conscience.  Hence  he  coldly  disregarded  the  well-meaning 
rebuke  of  his  former  friend. 

"Dr.  Forest,"  he  urged,  ''above  all  I  am  astonished  that 
thou,  whom  I  hold  for  one  of  the  most  learned  men  in  the 
realm,  should  be  accused  of  being  a  Papist,  and  I  refuse  to 
believe  it  till  I  hear  it  from  thine  own  mouth. ' ' 

"Thou  has  known  me  for  many  years,  Latimer,"  the 
friar  calmly  retorted,  "and  I  am  still  more  astonished  at 
thee,  that  for  the  pomps  of  the  world  thou  hast  endangered 
thine  own  soul.  Dost  thou  not  recollect  what  thou  didst 
write  me  against  the  emperor,  when  he  was  against  Rome 
and  the  Pope,  and  how  thou  with  all  thy  voice  didst  denounce 
them  all  as  heretics  1  Recollect  how  we,  the  doctors  of  the 
Church,  considered  the  act  and  condemned  it,  and  decided 
that  those  who  did  it  should  be  excommunicated.  What 
wert  thou  then,  Latimer,  a  Papist  or  a  heretic  ? '  '^° 

"I  am  no  heretic,"  shouted  the  bishop,  quite  discomfited, 
"but  rather  was  I  then  deceived,  and  am  now  enlightened 
with  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  if  thou  wilt  call  upon  thy  better 
self,  thou  also  wilt  receive  the  light,  for  thou  art  now  blind. ' ' 

This  duplicity  and  perversion  deeply  pained  the  man  of 
God.  How  he  longed  to  reclaim  this  erring  fellow  priest, 
who  in  his  mad  pursuit  after  royal  preferments  had  wantonly 
strayed  from  the  path  of  duty. 

"Oh,  Latimer,"  he  pleaded,  "I  think  thou  hast  other 
things  in  thy  heart !  But  since  the  king  has  made  thee  from 
a  poor  student  into  a  bishop,  thou  art  constrained  to  say 
this.  Open  thou  thine  eyes;  take  example  by  that  holy 
Bishop  of  Rochester  and  the  blessed  Thomas  More,  who  re- 
nounced the  goods  of  this  world,  and  chose  rather  to  die  than 
to  lose  their  immortal  souls. ' ' 

"0  God,"  cried  Latimer,  at  a  loss  what  to  say,  "how 
great  are  the  snares  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  who  has  kept 
men  in  darkness  for  so  many  years. ' ' 

Evidently,  he  was  engaged  in  a  losing  game  with  his 

60.  Here  was  Latimer's  chance  to  make  a  count  in  his  own  favor  by 
referring  to  the  martyr's  recent  abjuration,  had  such  an  abjuration  actually 
been  made. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  165 

doughty  adversary.  To  save  himself  and  his  cause  in  the 
eyes  of  the  people,  he  must  play  a  different  card. 

"And  look  thou,  Dr.  Forest,"  he  hastily  continued, 
' '  that  thou  mayest  see  the  snares  and  the  falsity  of  his  saints, 
they  shall  bring  hither  one  of  the  idols  of  the  Bishop  of 
Rome." 

At  these  words,  the  statue  of  St.  Dervel  was  brought  and 
placed  on  the  platform  occupied  by  the  friar. 

"Look,  Dr.  Forest,"  repeated  Latimer,  pointing  to  the 
image,  "this  is  one  of  the  idols  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  and 
for  my  own  part,"  he  added  contemptuously,  "I  think  the 
priests  ought  to  have  given  the  Bishop  of  Rome  half  of  his 
profits. ' ' 

The  blessed  martyr  could  not  refrain  from  laughing. 

"I  am  not  surprised,"  he  said,  "that  what  thou  sayest 
should  have  happened,  for  the  priests  are  so  greedy,  that 
they  well  might  invent  that,  and  much  more;  but  do  not 
think  that  the  Pope  sanctions  any  such  thing." 

Sorely  vexed  at  the  obvious  discomfiture  of  Latimer  and 
anxious  to  see  Forest  in  his  torments,  Cromwell  abruptly 
terminated  the  disputation. 

"My  Lord  Bishop,"  he  exclaimed,  "I  think  you  strive  in 
vain  with  this  stubborn  man.  It  would  be  better  to  burn 
him." 

Far  from  intimidating  the  intrepid  friar,  the  minister's 
words  rather  served  to  embolden  him. 

"Gentlemen,"  he  said  defiantly,  "if  I  were  willing  to 
sacrifice  my  soul,  it  would  not  have  been  necessary  to  come 
to  this  place." 

' '  Take  him  off  at  once, ' '  commanded  Cromwell,  pale  with 
rage. 

Unspeakable  joy  thrilled  the  brave  soul  of  Forest  when 
he  realized  that  at  last  the  long  looked  for  moment  had  come. 
Turning  toward  the  three  men  still  supporting  the  statue, 
he  smiled  and  said  playfully : 

' '  Brethren,  I  pray  ye,  do  not  drop  it  on  me,  for  my  hour 
is  not  yet  come. ' ' 


166  FRANCISCANS  AND 

Wholly  intent  on  overcoming  the  constancy  of  the  valiant 
friar,  Latimer  once  more  addressed  him.  There  was  a  sus- 
picion of  sadness  and  sympathy  in  his  voice  that  showed 
how  his  own  soul  was  racked  with  remorse. 

"Brother  Forest,"  he  pleaded,  "I  beseech  thee  to  turn. 
The  king  will  give  thee  a  good  living,  for  I  know  full  well 
that  if  thou  wishest  thou  art  well  able  to  give  doctrine  to 
great  numbers." 

But  compared  with  the  promise  of  eternal  life,  this  world 
with  all  its  goods  had  no  value  in  the  eyes  of  the  blessed 
martyr. 

"All  the  treasures  of  the  world,  Latimer,"  he  replied, 
"will  not  move  me  from  my  will ;  but  I  much  desire  to  speak 
with  one  of  the  gentlemen  here. ' ' 

Thereupon,  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  arose  to  go  over  to 
where  Forest  stood.     Cromwell,  however,  intercepted  him. 

"My  Lord  Duke,"  he  commanded,  "take  your  seat 
again  ;  if  he  wants  to  say  anything,  let  him  say  it  out  that  we 
can  all  hear." 

Though  mortified  at  this  public  indignity,  the  Duke  was 
constrained  to  obey.  He  well  knew  that  Cromwell  was  all- 
powerful  with  the  king.  When  Forest  perceived  that  no  one 
would  be  permitted  to  speak  with  him  in  private,  he  turned 
quietly  toward  his  enemies  and  making  the  sign  of  the  cross, 
exclaimed : 

' '  Gentlemen,  with  this  body  of  mine  deal  as  you  wish. ' '" 
Provoked  beyond  measure,  Cromwell  gives  the  sign.  The 
throng  of  spectators  gaze  in  breathless  silence  at  the  vener- 
able friar,  who  offers  no  resistance  when  the  executioners 
drag  him  down  from  the  scaffold  and  lead  him  to  the  gibbet. 
Heedless  of  the  torments  he  knows  are  in  store  for  him,  the 
dauntless  champion  raises  his  eyes  to  heaven  and  declares, 
"Neither  fire,  nor  fagot,  nor  scaffold  shall  separate  me  from 
Thee,  0  Lord."^-  The  executioners  tear  off  his  outer  habit, 
gird  him  about  the  waist  and  under  the  arms  with  the  iron 

61.  The  above  dialog  and  details  are  taken  from  Garcias's  narrative 
as  quoted  by  Stone,  pp.  66  seq.,  and  by  Camm,  Vol.  I,  pp.  317  seq. 

62.  Bourchier,  p.  48. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  167 

chain"^  that  dangles  from  the  gibbet,  and  draw  him  upwards, 
so  that  he  hangs  suspended  over  the  straw  and  fagots. 
These  they  now  ignite,  a  dense  volume  of  smoke  ascends,  and 
soon  the  inhuman  torture  begins.  Tongues  of  fire  lick  the 
martyr's  feet.  Racked  with  pain,  he  involuntarily  raises 
them  and  clutches  the  scaffold ;  but  only  for  a  moment ;  and 
as  if  repenting  of  the  act,  he  willingly  lets  go  his  hold  and 
suffers  the  flames  to  do  their  work.  Fed  with  chips  hewn 
from  the  statue  of  St.  Dervel,  the  heat  becomes  well-nigh 
unbearable,  while  the  heartless  executioners  grasp  their  hal- 
berts  and  with  their  aid  bring  the  martyr  into  a  swinging 
motion.  A  strong  wind  sweeps  over  Smithfield  and  fans 
the  flames  to  one  side,  so  that  they  reach  only  his  lov/er  ex- 
tremities. Though  untold  agony  convulses  the  martyr's 
body,  his  soul  is  rapt  in  sweet  communion  with  Him  who 
died  on  the  cross  to  save  mankind.  Above  the  crackling  of 
the  fire  and  the  low  murmurs  of  the  bystanders,  he  is  heard 
praying  for  strength  and  perseverance ;  beating  his  breast 
with  his  hands,  he  cries,  ' '  In  the  shadow  of  thy  wings  I  will 
trust,  until  iniquity  pass  away. ' ' 

Two  hours  have  now  elapsed.  Still  dangling  from  the 
gibbet,  oppressed  by  the  scorching  heat  and  smoke,  the  man 
of  God  is  patiently  waiting  for  death  to  end  his  fearful  suffer- 
ings. The  spectators  are  filled,  some  with  disgust  at  the 
obstinate  friar,  many  with  sympathy  for  him.  At  last,  the 
executioners  approach  the  gibbet  and  loosen  its  supports,  so 
that  it  crashes  with  its  burden  into  the  greedy  flames.  At 
this,  the  heroic  martyr  prays  aloud,  "In  thee,  0  Lord,  have 
I  hoped,  let  me  never  be  confounded :  deliver  me  in  thy 
justice.  Bow  down  thy  ear  to  me :  make  haste  to  deliver 
me."  Amid  the  crackling  of  the  flames,  his  prayers  grow 
fainter  and  fainter.     Then  a  last,  "Into  thy  hands  I  com- 

63.  Thaddeus,  p.  69.  Sander  (ed.  1585,  p.  90 — ed.  1690,  p.  243)  says 
that  two  chains  were  fastened  round  the  martyr's  arms.  Bourchier  (p.  49) 
speaks  only  of  one  chain,  which  was  secured  round  his  waist  (circa  ven- 
trem).  "One  would  lilie  to  thinli,"  remarks  Camm  (p.  320),  "that  the 
martyr  was  hung  by  the  middle,  in  order  that  he  might  be  the  sooner 
suffocated,  but  it  is  to  be  feared  that  the  motive  was  to  make  him  look 
ridiculous." 


168  FRANCISCANS  AND 

mend  my  spirit ' ' — the  martj-r  's  voice  is  heard  no  more^* — his 
beautiful  soul  freed  from  its  prison  of  clay  has  ascended  to 
the  mansions  of  unending  bliss  to  receive  the  martyr 's  crown 
and  to  join  the  triumphant  ranks  of  those  "who  have  de- 
spised the  life  of  the  world,  and  have  arrived  at  the  reward 
of  the  kingdom,  and  have  washed  their  garments  in  the  blood 
of  the  Lamb." 

It  is  related  that  while  BL  John  Forest  was  in  the  midst 
of  his  torments,  a  snow  white  dove  was  seen  fluttering  about 
the  gibbet  and  settling  at  last  on  the  head  of  the  martyr. 
Furthermore,  we  are  told,  the  Saint 's  right  hand,  mouth  and 
tongue  remained  untouched  by  the  fire,  "as  if  God,"  re- 
marks Thaddeus,  "would  thus  show  his  approval  of  all  he 
had  written  and  spoken  in  defence  of  the  Faith. '  '^^  Nothing 
certain  is  known  regarding  the  whereabouts  of  the  martyr's 
relics.  Father  Thaddeus  thinks  it  is  "most  probable  that 
the  mortal  remains  of  Father  Forest  still  lie  hidden  at 
Smithfield,  near  the  corner  of  St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital 
opposite  the  gate  of  the  ancient  priory, '  '^'^  where,  according 
to  Garcias,  they  were  interred  on  the  day  of  his  glorious 
martyrdom.  Already  in  1638,  Fr.  Arturus  a  Monasterio 
thus  commemorated  him  in  his  Franciscan  Martyrology: 
"At  London,  in  England,  memory  of  Blessed  John  Forest, 
an  apostolic  man  and  martyr,  who,  by  order  of  Henry  VIII, 
King  of  England,  was  cast  into  prison  for  the  defence  of  the 
Catholic  Faith,  and  after  a  cruel  imprisonment,  sentenced 
to  death ;  being  suspended  on  a  gibbet,  a  slow  fire  was  lighted 
at  his  feet  and  he  was  inhumanly  roasted,  until  at  length, 
being  all  consumed  by  the  fire,  he  went  up  to  heaven  vic- 
torious." On  December  9,  1886,  Pope  Leo  XIII  declared 
him  blessed  together  with  the  Tertiary  Martyr  Thomas  More 
and  fifty-two  others,  who  between  the  years  1535  and  1583 
shed  their  blood  in  England  in  defence  of  the  faith.  The 
feast  of  Bl.  John  Forest  is  celebrated  annually  on  May  22, 
throughout  the  Franciscan  Order. 

64.  Thaddeus,  p.  70. 

65.  Thaddeus,  p.   71.     See  also   Gu6rin,  Le  Palmier  SerapMque,   Vol. 
V,  p.  470. 

66.  The  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  Vol.  VIII,  p.  464, 


CHAPTER  X 

DEATH  AND  DESTRUCTION,   1538-1547 

Renewed  measures  against  the  Franciscans— Three  martyrs: 
FF.  Antony  Brown,  John  Waire,  and  Hemmysley—The 
Conventual  friars— Their  poverty— During  the  first 
years  of  the  religious  upheaval — The  royal  visitors — 
Wholesale  rohhery  and  vandalism — Subsequent  lot  of 
the  Conventual  houses  and  of  the  ejected  friars. 

Like  Blessed  John  Forest,  a  number  of  his  fellow  friars, 
whose  detention  in  the  Conventual  houses  had  also  become 
less  severe,  were  again  using  their  influence  in  behalf  of 
papal  supremacy.  Hence  the  spies  of  Cromwell  found  much 
to  report  against  them,  so  that  the  hatred  of  their  enemies 
was  enkindled  anew,  and  Henry  determined  to  wreak  fear- 
ful vengeance  on  these  obstinate  "sowers  of  sedition."  We 
have  already  seen  how,  in  consequence,  three  Franciscans 
were  thrown  into  prison  in  1537  and  died  there  as  martyrs 
of  the  faith.  Little,  however,  is  known  regarding  the  sub- 
sequent fate  of  the  other  members  of  the  suppressed  prov- " 
ince.  From  the  scanty  records  available,  we  may  safely 
conclude  that  they  were  again  hunted  down  like  criminals 
and  subjected  to  every  sort  of  indignity.  While  some  suc- 
ceeded in  either  remaining  concealed  or  in  leaving  the  coun- 
try, others  fell  into  the  hands  of  their  pursuers  and  were 
thrown  into  loathsome  dungeons,  where  shut  off  from  the 
outer  world  they  spent  months  and  years  amid  untold  suf- 
ferings, until  death  at  last  came  to  their  relief.  Between 
1538  and  1547,  the  year  of  Henry 's  tragic  end,  the  martyr- 
dom of  only  three  Franciscans  has  been  recorded. 

On  August  4,  1538,  four  months  after  the  glorious  death 
of  Bl.  John  Forest,  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  informed  Cromwell 

169 


170  FRANCISCANS  AND 

that  the  justices  of  assize  at  Norwich  had  examined  Fr. 
Antony  Brown,  who  once  belonged  to  the  Greenwich  com- 
munity and  who  was  now  living  as  a  hermit.  The  valiant 
friar,  we  learn,  wrote  out  his  own  confession,  and  refusing 
to  alter  his  views  on  papal  supremacy,  he  was  found  guilty 
of  high  treason  and  condemned  to  death.  His  execution, 
however,  was  delayed  for  ten  days,  because  it  was  thought 
' '  convenient  that  a  sermon  should  be  made  by  the  bishop  of 
Norwich,  as  was  by  the  bishop  of  Worcester  at  the  execution 
of  Forest."  In  the  interval,  nothing  was  left  undone  to 
shake  the  constancy  of  Fr.  Antony.  "This  afternoon," 
writes  the  duke,  "we  so  handled  the  said  friar  that  we 
brought  him  to  this  point,  that  he  would  not  stick  upon  the 
authority  of  the  bishop  of  Rome  to  be  supreme  head  of  the 
Church,^  but  in  no  wise  could  we  bring  him  from  the  opinion 
that  the  king  ought  not  to  be  supreme  head  of  the  Church, 
saying  that  no  temporal  prince  was  capax  of  that  name  and 
authority."  In  vain  did  the  bishop  of  Norwich  and  Dr. 
Call,  a  Conventual  friar,  argue  with  him.  Accordingly, 
' '  we  have  delivered  him, ' '  continues  Norfolk,  ' '  to  the  sheriff 
to  be  carried  to  the  goal  and  there  to  suffer  according  to  his 
foolish  doings  upon  Friday  next.  Before  his  death  the  said 
bishop  shall  make  such  a  sermon  as  we  trust  shall  be  to  the 
king's  highness  contentation  and  apparent  to  the  people 
(who,  we  think,  will  be  there  in  great  number)  that  this 
unhappy  foolish  friar  is  w^ell  worthy  to  suffer  and  that  his 
opinions  be  false  and  untrue.  My  Lord,"  he  adds,  "the 
cause  of  the  sending  of  this  man  in  so  great  haste  unto  you  is 
because  that  if  the  king's  majesty  and  you  shall  think  it 
convenient  to  have  him  to  be  brought  to  the  Tower,  there 
to  be  more  straightly  examined  and  to  be  put  to  torture,  you 
may  despatch  this  bearer  or  some  other  with  command  to 
the  sheriff  accordingly,  so  that  the  same  may  be  with  him  at 
Norwich  by  Friday  at  ten  o'clock."  Again  the  bishop 
sought  to  win  Fr.  Antony  over  to  the  king's  side.    But  his 

1.  This  is  probably  to  signify,  as  Spillmann  remarks,  that  he  did  not 
succe-ssfully  defend  the  doctrine  of  papal  supremacy.  See  Katholikcnver- 
folgung  in  England,  Part  I,  p.  204. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  171 

efforts  proved  fruitless.  The  servant  of  God  remained  firm 
to  the  end.  Particulars  regarding  his  martyrdom  have  not 
come  down  to  us,  but  ' '  there  can  be  little  doubt, ' '  says  Gas- 
quet,  "that  the  sentence  of  death  was  carried  out  on  Friday, 
August  9,  1538.- 

A  year  later,  on  July  8,  another  Franciscan,  Fr.  John 
Waire  (Maire)  suffered  martyrdom  at  St.  Thomas  Water- 
ings in  Southwark.  With  him  were  executed  Griffith  Clark, 
a  secular  priest  and  vicar  of  Wandsworth,  also  the  latter 's 
curate  and  his  servant.  Details  of  their  martyrdom,  how- 
ever, have  not  been  recorded.  "John  Stow  says,  he  had  not 
seen  the  indictment ;  but  Catholic  writers,  who  are  particu- 
larly inquisitive  concerning  such  matters,  all  agree  they 
suffered  for  denying  the  king's  supremacy ;  this  year  and  the 
next  being  remarkable  for  that  sort  of  executions. '  '^ 

The  last  Observant  friar  who  is  known  to  have  died  for 
the  faith  before  the  demise  of  Henry  VIII  we  find  commemo- 
rated in  Grey  Friars  Chronicle  under  the  year  1546 ;  viz., 
"And  the  xvi.  day  of  Julii  was  burned  in  Smythfelde  for 
grett  herrysy.  .  .  .  Hemmysley  a  priest,  wyche  was  an 
Obesruand  freere  of  Richmond."'' 

It  is  time  that  we  recount  the  history  of  the  Conventual 
friars  during  these  first  years  of  the  conflict.  Approxi- 
mately, they  were  at  the  time  about  800  in  number,^  dis- 
tributed over  some   70  houses.^     Although  they  had  not 

2.  Gasquet,  Henry  VIII  and  the  English  Monasteries,  Vol.  II,  pp 
251  scq. 

3.  Dodd,  Church  History  of  England,  Vol.  I,  p.  214  ;  Hope,  Franciscan 
Martyrs  in  England,  p.  16  ;  Stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  81 ;  Thaddeus. 
The  Franciscans  in  England,  p.  17.  Fr.  Walre's  name  is  on  the  list  of 
English  martyrs  whose  cause  of  beatification  has  been  introduced.  Se« 
Acta  Minorum,  Vol.  VI   (1887),  pp.  49  seq. 

4.  Grey  Friars  Chronicle  in  Monumcnta  Franciscana,  Vol.  II,  p.  211. 

5.  This  estimate  is  based  on  Gasquet  (Henry  Till  ....  Monastei'iea, 
Vol.  11,  p.  241),  who  reckons  eleven  friars  for  each  convent. 

6.  It  is  very  probable  that,  as  Thaddeus  .states  (The  Franciscans  in. 
England,  p.  15),  the  English  Province  numbered  73  friaries  at  the  time  of 
the  Dissolution.  Gasquet,  however,  in  his  English  Monastic  Life  (pp. 
251-318),  accounts  for  only  64  houses.  Whence  this  discrepancy?  In  th<> 
first  place,  Gasquet  mentions  only  those  houses  that  were  situated  in  Eng- 
land proper,  omitting,  therefore,  the  four  in  Scotland  ;  to  wit.  Dumfries. 
Dundee,  Haddington,  Roxburgh.  Furthermore,  he  fails  to  mention  six 
others  ;  namely,  Berwick,  Brougham,  Ludlow,  Penrith,  Stoke,  Walsinghara, 
which  were  located  in  England  proper  and,  according  to  Parkinson  (Antiqui- 
ties of  the  English  Franciscans,  Part   II,   passim),   are   accounted  for   by 


172  FRANCISCANS  AND 

formally  joined  the  Observant  reform,  still  it  is  quite  safe  to 
assert  that  they  were  favorably  disposed  toward  it.  We 
know,  for  instance,  that  already  in  1502  they  had  changed 
their  habit  for  the  one  adopted  by  their  reformed  brethren. '^ 
As  to  the  vow  of  poverty,  which  constituted  the  essential 
difference  betwen  the  Observantine  and  the  Conventual  body 
in  the  Order,  they  practically  belonged  to  the  former ;  for, 
as  Little  says,  ' '  from  the  smallness  of  the  lands  held  by  the 
friars  and  from  the  smallness  of  their  regular  incomes  from 
other  sources,  it  may  be  inferred  that  they  depended  for 
their  livelihood  mainly  on  voluntary  and  casual  alms  (in- 
cluding legacies),  and  this  inference  is  supported  by  the 
evidence  of  the  straits  to  which  the  friars  were  reduced 
whenever  for  any  reason  the  supply  of  alms  was  cut  off  or 
diminished."*  Again  the  same  author  writes,  "The  reply 
of  the  guardian  of  the  Grey  Friars  of  Coventry  to  the  royal 
commissioners  in  1535  might  truthfully  have  been  said  by 
most  of  his  fellow  guardians : '  Friar  John  Stafford,  guardian 
of  the  same  house,  being  examined  on  oath,  says  that  they 
have  no  lands  nor  tenements  nor  other  possessions,  nor  reve- 
nues spiritual  or  temporal  of  any  yearly  value,  but  only 
* '  limitations ' '  in  the  country  and  uncertain  charitable  gifts 
of  the  people.'  "" 

That  the  Conventuals,  in  the  beginning  of  the  religious 
upheaval,  were  less  conspicuous  than  their  brethren  of  the 
Observance  in  opposing  the  policy  of  Henry  A^III,  must  not 
pass  for  a  sign  that  they  were  less  devoted  to  the  cause  of 
truth  and  justice.  There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that 
when  the  question  of  papal  supremacy  came  to  a  head,  they 
as  a  body  were  staunch  in  their  allegiance  to  the  Holy  See. 
A  few  of  their  number,  indeed,  are  known  to  have  sympa- 
thized to  some  extent  with  the  rebellious  king's  measures. 

such  historians  as  Wadding,  Leland.  Mason  and  Davenport.  This  fact,  it 
seems,  induced  Thaddeus  to  take  them  up  in  his  list  of  the  friaries.  Finally, 
Gasquet  adds  one  house,  Haverford  East,  which  Thaddeus  does  not  mention. 

7.  Little,  Studies  in  English  Franciscan  History,  p.  61,  quoting  a 
London  Chronicle  edited  by  Kingsford. 

8.  Little,  ibidem,  p.  27. 

9.  Little,  ibidem,  p.  46. 


'rHE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION     173 

Thus  Fr.  Thomas  Chapman,  guardian  of  the  London  con- 
vent, assured  Cromwell  that  some  of  his  community  were 
willing  to  change  their  habits  as  soon  as  ordered  to  do  so, 
and  at  the  same  time  he  gave  the  minister  the  names  of  such 
as  had  of  late  supported  E'r.  John  Forest  with  alms.^° 
Again,  as  stated  above,  Dr.  Call  defended  the  king's  suprem- 
acy at  the  trial  of  Fr.  Antony  Brown.  As  to  Fr.  Alexander 
Barklay,  it  was  perhaps  this  same  policy  of  submission  to  the 
royal  will  that  safeguarded  his  remaining  in  England  till 
his  death  in  1552,  although  previously  he  had  been  denounced 
by  the  king's  men  as  doing  "much  hurt  in  Cornwall  and 
Devonshire  both  with  open  preaching  and  private  communi- 
cations. ' '  It  was  probably  in  the  summer  of  1538,  after  the 
dissolution  of  the  friaries,  that  Cromwell  one  day  met  him 
near  St.  Paul's  cemetery.  "Yea,"  he  said,  on  seeing  the 
friar  in  his  habit,  "will  not  that  cowl  of  yours  be  left  off 
yet  ?  And,  if  I  hear  by  one  o  'clock  that  this  apparel  be  not 
changed,  thou  shalt  be  hanged  immediately  for  example  of 
all  others.""  How  many  more  of  the  Conventuals  in  this 
way  at  last  succumbed  under  the  pressure  of  threat  and 
promise,  it  is  impossible  to  determine. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  know  of  some  who,  like  the  Observ- 
ants, refused  to  submit  and  underwent  great  hardships 
for  conscience  sake.  This  was  owing  perhaps  to  the  fact 
that  in  the  summer  of  1534,  as  we  have  heard,  they  were 
compelled  to  receive  many  of  the  expelled  Observants  into 
their  houses,  and  thus  had  occasion  to  become  more  inti- 
mately acquainted  with  their  reformed  brethren.  Many, 
no  doubt,  admired  them  for  their  virtues  and  gradually 
imbibed  their  principles  and  ideals,  so  that  in  time  they,  too, 
became  unflinching  supporters  of  papal  supremacy,  Park- 
inson tells  us  that  the  Conventual  community  at  Ware  stren- 
uously denounced  the  king's  attitude  toward  the  Pope,  and 
that  for  this  reason  it  was  dissolved  as  early  as  1534.^^ 

10.  Camm,  Lives  of  the  English  Martyrs,  Vol.  — ,  p.  297. 

11.  Gasquet,  Henry  VIII  ....  Monasteries  (popular  edition,  1906), 
p.  144,  footnote.     See  also  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  317. 

12.  Parkinson,  Part  II,  p.  12. 


174  FRANCISCANS  AND 

Others,  we  find,  were  cast  into  prison  for  being  too  out- 
spoken in  their  defence  of  the  Holy  See.  When  FF.  John 
Hunt  and  Robert  Ellis  had  to  leave  their  convent,  they  were 
asked  whether  they  would  again  wear  the  habit ;  whereupon 
"they  both  said  they  would  not  for  a  year  or  two  and  by 
that  time  perchance  there  would  be  another  change."  For 
this  reply  they  were  imprisoned.^^  Again,  Fr.  William 
Petty,  who  belonged  to  the  Jersey  community,  was  found 
guilty  of  high  treason  and  condemned  to  death  for  main- 
taining the  spiritual  supremacy  of  the  Pope.  Writing  to 
Cromwell  for  instructions  regarding  this  friar's  execution, 
Southwell  declares,  "Petty  is  subtly  witted  as  he  is  in- 
genious, and  hath  as  pleasant  instrument  for  the  utterance 
of  his  cankered  heart  as  I  have  heard.  "^*  At  Reading,  the 
members  of  the  community  were  mostly  men  of  advanced 
age.  The  guardian,  Fr.  Peter  Lawrence,  was  a  personal 
friend  of  Dr.  London,  the  royal  commissioner,  who  in  Sep- 
tember, 1538,  confiscated  the  convent,  but  allowed  the  friars 
to  remain  provided  they  would  not  wear  the  habit.  For  a 
time,  it  seems,  they  complied,  trusting  perhaps,  like  so  many 
others  at  the  time,  that  after  a  few  years  the  king  would 
relent  or  die.  A  year  later,  however,  in  November,  the 
guardian  together  with  Fr.  Giles  Coventry,  one  of  the  com- 
munity, are  found  on  the  list  of  prisoners  in  the  Tower.^^ 

During  the  suppression  of  the  lesser  monasteries,  in  1535 
and  1536,  the  Conventual  houses  had  not  been  molested, 
since,  as  Parkinson  says  regarding  the  one  at  Coventry, 
"there  was  nothing  to  be  got  by  their  ruin,  forasmuch  as 
they  had  no  endowment  of  lands,  etc. '  '^®  After  the  north- 
ern rising,  however,  when  motives  of  revenge  were  added  to 
those  of  avarice,  the  Conventual  houses  with  all  that  be- 
longed to  them  were  appropriated  by  the  crown.  Now  it 
became  manifest  how  the  friars  were  practicing  the  vow  of 
poverty.     Parkinson's  account  which  is  based  on  Speed, 

13.  Gasquet,  Henry  VIII  ....  Monasteries,  Vol.  II,  p.  261,  footnote. 

14.  Gasquet,  Ibidem,  p.  264. 

15.  Gasquet,  Ibidem,  pp.  265,  336. 

16.  Parkinson,  Part  II,  p.  34. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  175 

Leland,  and  Weever,  and  Wright's  Suppression  of  the 
Monasteries,  which  contains  142  letters  ^"  written  by  the 
king's  officials  immediately  after  their  visit  to  the  religious 
houses,  show  clearly  that  the  great  majority  of  the  Con- 
ventual friaries  had  little  or  no  valuation.  Indeed,  many 
are  not  even  mentioned,  while  others  are  recorded  as  having 
' '  no  rents ' ' — ' '  no  lands ' ' — ' '  no  value. ' '  Regarding  landed 
endowments  apart  from  the  sites  of  the  friaries,  Little  eon- 
tends  that  they  were  "small  in  amount,  of  recent  origin, 
confined  to  a  few  houses,  and  devoted  to  special  services. '  '^® 
"The  friars  had  nothing  in  propriety,  nor  in  common," 
writes  Fuller,  "but  being  mendicants,  begged  all  their  sub- 
sistence from  the  charity  of  others.  True  it  is  they  had 
cells  or  houses  to  dwell  in,  or  rather  to  hide  themselves  in. 
So  the  foxes  have  holes  and  the  birds  of  the  air  have  nests ; 
but  all  this  went  for  nothing,  seeing  that  they  had  no  means 
belonging  thereunto.  It  will  be  objected  that  many  con- 
vents of  friars  had  large  and  ample  revenues,  as  it  will  ap- 
pear by  perusing  the  Catalogue  in  Speed's  tables.  I  have 
nothing  to  return  in  answer  hereunto,  save  only  that  .  .  . 
these  additions  of  lands  unto  them  are  of  a  later  date,  and, 
believe  it,  not  of  their  seeking,  but  their  benefactors  casting 
upon  them."^^ 

A  few  figures  will  show  how  well  these  words  apply  to 
the  Conventual  friars.  At  the  time  of  the  suppression,  their 
annual  revenues  at  Walsingham,  Bedford,  and  Aylesbury 
were  a  little  over  £3.  After  visiting  the  friars  at  Aylesbury, 
John  London  wrote  to  Cromwell,  "I  found  them  very  poor 
and  in  debt,  their  ornaments  very  coarse,  and  very  little 
stuff  of  household. ' '    The  largest  of  their  friaries,  according 

17.  The  greater  portion  of  these  letters,  Wright  assures  his  readers, 
are  reprints  from  a  volume  in  the  Cottonian  Library  in  the  British  Museum. 
The  author's  purpose  in  publishing  these  letters  was  to  show,  as  he  him- 
self says,  "the  facility  with  which  the  inmates  of  the  monasteries,  at  the 
time  of  their  dissolution,  confessed  to  vices  from  the  very  name  of  which 
our  imagination  recoils."  Whatever  truth  there  may  have  been  In  the 
charges  proferred  by  the  royal  visitors  against  the  religious.  It  Is  a  strik- 
ing fact  that  in  all  the  letters  not  a  single  instance  occurs  where  the  sons 
of  St.  Francis  are  accused  of  leading  lives  unworthy  of  their  sacred  calling. 

18.  Little,  p.  23. 

19.  Parkinson,  preface  to  Part  II,  p.  Iv. 


176  FRANCISCANS  AND 

to  Leland,  was  the  one  at  Northampton ;  and  yet  the  yearly 
income  here  was  only  £6  17s,  5d.  The  house  at  Bridgenorth 
was  rated  at  £4  per  annum.  On  surrendering  it,  the  friars 
declared  ' '  that  they  were  not  able  to  live ;  for  the  charity  of 
the  people  was  so  small  that  in  three  years  they  had  not 
received  in  alms  in  ready  money  the  sum  of  ten  shillings  a 
year,  and  they  lived  only  by  a  service  that  they  had  in  the 
town  in  a  chapel  on  the  bridge."*"  At  Coventry,  according 
to  Dugdale,  "they  had  no  lands,  nor  other  possessions, 
spiritual  or  temporal,  but  only  liberty  in  the  country  to  re- 
ceive the  charity  of  good  people.  "^^  At  Boston,  the  royal 
agent  found  the  four  houses  of  friars,  one  of  which  belonged 
to  the  Conventuals,  very  poor  and  the  inmates  in  great  need. 
In  the  Conventual  friary  at  Lincoln,  he  found  nothing 
worth  mentioning  save  the  conduit  which  the  mayor  and  the 
aldermen  asked  to  have  turned  into  public  use.  Regarding 
their  house  at  Gloucester,  the  commissioner  reported,  * '  The 
Gray  Friars  is  a  goodly  house,  much  of  it  newly  built, 
especially  the  church,  choir,  and  dormitory;  the  rest  small 
lodgings;  divers  leases  out  for  years  of  lodgings  and  gar- 
dens; no  lead  but  a  conduit  and  small  gutters."  At  Staf- 
ford, they  had  "the  choir  leaded  and  a  chapel,  small  imple- 
ments, no  plate  but  a  chalice  and  six  sponys  (spoons  ?),  in 
rents  6s.  4d.,"  while  at  Shrewsbury  were  found  "a  proper 
house,  small  implements,  no  jewels  but  a  plate  cross  (of) 
silver,  and  a  little  chalice  of  little  value ;  no  rents  but  their 
house  and  about  three  or  four  acres  of  arable  land  lying 
to  it."" 

Parkinson  brings  the  copy  of  an  instrument  to  which,  in 
October,  1539,  friars  of  Coventry  and  Stamford  affixed  their 
names,  thereby  surrendering  the  convent  to  the  crown.^^ 
The  document  is  interesting  inasfar  as  it  shows  what  a 


20.  Hope,  Franciscan  Martyrs  in  England,  pp.  65  seq. 

21.  Parkinson,  Part  II,  p.  34.  From  this  it  would  seem  that  the  Con- 
ventuals, in  strict  keeping  of  the  Rule  of  St.  Francis,  were  wont  to  go  on 
quest  for  their  daily  subsistence. 

22.  Wright,  Suppression  of  the  Monasteries,  pp.  192,  199,  204,  205. 

23.  Parkinson,  Part  II,  pp.  35,  27. 


THE  PEOTESTANT  REVOLUTION  177 

comedy  of  legal  formalities  were  gone  through  to  give  the 
proceedings  the  semblance  of  justice. 

For  as  much  as  we  the  warden  and  friars  of  the  house  of  St. 
Francis  in  Coventry,  in  the  county  of  Warwick,  commonly  called  the 
Grey  Friars  in  Coventry,  do  profoundly  consider,  that  the  perfec- 
tion of  Christian  living  docs  not  consist  in  dumb  ceremonies,  wear- 
ing of  a  grey  coat,-*  disguising  ourselves  after  strange  fashions, 
' '  doking,  nodding,  and  becking, ' '  in  girding  ourselves  with  a  girdle 
full  of  knots,  and  other  like  papistical  ceremonies,  wherein  w^e  had 
been  most  principally  practiced  and  misled  in  times  past;  but  the 
very  true  way  to  please  God,  and  to  live  a  true  Christian  man,  with- 
out all  hypocrisy  and  feigned  dissimulation,  is  sincerely  declared  unto 
us  by  our  Master  Christ,  his  Evangelists,  and  Apostles:  being  minded 
hereafter  to  follow  the  same,  conforming  ourselves  unto  the  will  and 
pleasure  of  our  supreme  head  under  God  on  earth,  the  King's  majesty, 
and  not  to  follow  henceforth  the  superstitious  traditions  of  any  foreign 
potentate  or  peer;  with  mutual  assent  and  consent,2j  do  surrender 
and  yield  up  into  the  hands  of  the  same  all  our  said  house  of  Saint 
Francis,  Grey  Friars,  in  Coventry,  with  all  the  lands,^^  tenements, 
gardens,  meadows,  waters,  pondiards,  feedings,  pastures,  commens, 
rents,  reversions,  and  all  other  our  interest,  rights,  or  titles,  apper- 
taining unto  the  same.  Most  humbly  beseeching  his  most  noble  grace 
to  dispose  of  us,  and  of  the  same,  as  best  shall  stand  with  his  most 
gracious  pleasure :  and  further  freely  to  grant  unto  every  one  of  us 
his  license  under  writing  and  seal  to  change  our  habits  into  secular 
fashion  and  to  receive  such  manner  of  livings  as  other  secular  priests 
commonly  be  preferred  unto.  And  we  all  faithfully  shall  pray  unto 
almighty  God  long  to  preserve  his  most  noble  grace  with  increase  of 
much  felicity  and  honor.  And,  in  witness  of  all  and  singular  the 
premises,  we  the  said  warden  and  convent  of  the  Grey  Friars  in 
Coventry  to  these  presences  have  put  our  convent  seal,  the  fifth 
day  of  October,  in  the  thirtieth  year  of  the  reign  of  our  most  sovereign 
lord  King  Henry  the  Eighth,  or  anno  1539. 

Such  were  the  instruments  which  the  commissioners  laid 
before  the  friars.    Referring  to  the  one  just  adduced,  Gas- 

24.  Here  Parkinson  remarks,  "The  friars  were  not  such  fools  as  to 
have,  at  any  time,  believed  that  Christian  perfection  consists  in  dumb 
ceremonies,  or  In  any  outward  dress  ;  but  this  was  said  for  them." 

25.  Parkinson  oliserves  that  Dugdale  suggested  the  terra  forced  iii 
place  of  mutual  assent  and  co7isent. 

26.  "This  is  for  form's  sake,"  comments  Parkinson  ;  "for  it  was  well 
known  that  the  friars  there  had  no  lands,  tenements,  etc..  whatever  is  said 
in  the  form."  The  instruments  had  been  formulated  by  the  commissioners 
to  suit  all  emergencies. 


178  FRANCISCANS  AND 

quet  observes,  "Although  the  document  has  often  been 
pointed  to  as  proof  that  the  religious  themselves  confessed 
the  iniquity  of  their  lives,  no  reasonable  man  can  doubt 
that,  like  other  so-called  'confessions,'  this  was  a  ready- 
made  document. ' '"  To  throw  dust  in  the  eyes  of  the  peo- 
ple, they  were  made  to  read  as  if  the  friars  surrendered 
voluntarily.  The  fact  is,  however,  they  were  morally  forced 
to  sign,  being  told  that,  whether  they  did  so  or  not,  their 
possessions  by  an  act  of  parliament  already  belonged  to  the 
king ;  that  non-compliance  would  serve  only  to  make  matters 
worse ;  and  that  it  would,  therefore,  be  wisest  for  them  to 
make  a  virtue  of  necessity  and  do  the  king's  bidding.-* 

So  radical  and  thoroughgoing  was  the  procedure  of 
Richard  Ingworth  and  his  fellows  that  within  a  twelve- 
month all  the  friaries  of  the  Conventuals  were  in  the  hands 
of  the  king.  After  turning  out  the  helpless  friars,  the  com- 
missioners forthwith  set  about  dismantling  the  buildings  of 
whatever  might  realize  a  few  shillings  for  the  royal  coffers. 
Thereupon,  the  sites  were  either  sold  or  leased  for  a  mere 
pittance.  It  is  touching  to  read  how  wantonly  they  de- 
spoiled the  friaries  at  Stafford  and  Litchfield.-^  The  mis- 
sals, linens,  and  sacred  vestments  in  the  sacristy,  the  cruci- 
fixes, candlesticks,  statues,  pews  in  the  church  and  choir, 
the  furniture  in  the  friary,  yes  even  the  cooking  utensils  in 
the  kitchen  and  buttery — everything  that  was  not  thought 
worth  while  forwarding  to  headquarters,  was  offered  for 
sale,  the  friars  themselves  in  some  instances  becoming  the 
purchasers.  Thus  we  find,  for  instance,  that  the  guardian 
of  Stafford  bought  two  brass  pots  and  Fr.  Wood  one  of  the 
sacred  vestments. 

Only  meager  accounts  have  come  down  to  us  as  to  the 
eventual  fate  of  the  buildings.  The  friary  at  Yarmouth 
with  other  lands  was  given  to  Cromwell.^"    As  a  rule,  their 

27.  Gasquet,  Henry  VIII  ....  Monasteries,  Vol.  II,  p.  268. 

28.  See  Parkinson,  Part  II,  p.  27,  quoting  Fuller. 

29.  See  Wright,  pp.  266-278,  where  he  brings  the  accounts  of  John 
Scuflamore  regarding  the  sale  of  certain  friaries. 

30.  Little,  p.  225. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  179 

new  owners  either  let  them  fall  to  ruin,  or  had  them  wan- 
tonly defaced  and  torn  down,  or  had  them  converted  to  pro- 
fane uses.  Thus,  when  Parkinson  wrote,  the  belfry  of  the 
friars'  church  at  Coventry  was  used  as  a  barn.  The  author 
says  that  he  himself  had  seen  a  tasker  threshing  in  it.^^  In 
some  instances,  the  houses  were  obtained  by  the  city  for 
public  use.  Thus,  as  we  have  heard,  the  mayor  and  alder- 
men bartered  for  the  conduit  of  the  Lincoln  friary.  At 
Grimsby,  the  city  officials  desired  half  of  the  house  "to 
make  of  it  a  common  house  of  ordnance  and  other  neces- 
saries for  the  defence  of  the  king's  enemies  if  need  be," 
because  it  stood  ' '  very  well  for  the  purpose,  near  the  water 
and  open  to  the  sea."  At  "Worcester,  the  friary  was  sold 
to  the  city,  after  the  superfluous  buildings  had  been  de- 
molished. At  Reading,  the  church  was  successively  used  by 
the  city  as  a  town-hall,  a  workhouse,  and  a  jail.^- 

Only  of  the  houses  at  London  and  Oxford  have  interest- 
ing details  been  transmitted  to  posterity.  The  beautiful 
church  of  St.  Francis  in  London,  on  the  north  side  of  New- 
gate Street,  that  harbored  the  tombs  of  more  than  six 
hundred  persons  of  royalty  and  distinction,  was  at  first 
used  as  a  wine  store.  Seven  years  later,  on  January  3,  the 
king  had  the  church  reopened,  wishing  to  found  a  new 
parish  to  be  known  as  Christ  Church.  But  the  value  of 
the  property  was  so  small  that  to  support  the  parish  he 
was  constrained  to  add  to  it  St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital  in 
Smithfield,  the  churches  of  St.  Nicholas  and  St.  Evin  and  as 
much  of  St.  Puleher's  as  lay  within  Newgate,  together  with 
an  annual  grant  of  five  hundred  marks  in  land.  During 
the  great  London  Fire,  in  1666,  the  church  was  destroyed. 
It  was  subsequently  rebuilt  on  the  site  where  the_choir  of 
the  old  church  stood.^^  In  1552,  Edward  YI  had  the  con- 
vent buildings  repaired  and  turned  over  to  the  city  to  be 
used  as  an  orphanage  and  school,  which  for  many  years 

31.  Parkinson.  Part  II.  p.  36. 

32.  Gasquet,  Henry  VIII  ....  Monasteries.  Vol.  II,  pp.  273  seq. 

33.  Grey  Friars  Chronicle,  pp.  213,  216;  Parkinson,  Part  II,  p.  2; 
Camm,  p.  290,  footnote. 


180  FRANCISCANS  AND 

after  was  known  as  Christ  Hospital  or  Blue  Coat  School. 
A  part  of  the  wall  belonging  at  one  time  to  the  library  is 
thought  to  be  the  only  fragment  left  of  the  ancient  friar5^^* 

At  Oxford,  the  stately  buildings  with  their  spacious  gar- 
den and  orchard  were  leased  for  a  paltry  sum,  which  was 
paid  to  the  king  till  the  year  1545,  when  he  sold  the  prem- 
ises. "Then  down  went  the  trees,"  writes  Wood,  "and  the 
grass  plots  were  everywhere  trodden  out  of  all  form ;  nay, 
the  church  itself  was  entirely  pulled  down,  and  the  stones 
and  statues,  and  the  very  monuments  of  the  dead  escaped 
not,  but  were  wholly  demolished,  taken  away,  and  disposed 
of,  for  any  use  that  could  make  the  sale  of  them  bring  a 
penny."  The  same  historian  informs  us  that  when  he  was 
a  student  at  Oxford,  about  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  a  little  old  building  could  still  be  seen,  which  it 
was  said  had  once  been  the  study  of  FF.  Roger  Bacon  and 
Thomas  Bungey.^^ 

More  deplorable  was  the  subsequent  lot  of  the  ejected 
friars.  The  only  ones  known  to  have  obtained  pensions 
were  Fr.  Thomas  Chapman,  guardian  of  London,  and  his 
fellow  guardian  of  York.  "The  rest,"  Gasquet  writes, 
"were  dismissed  from  their  houses  with  some  small  gratuity, 
generally  only  a  few  shillings,  and  left  to  provide  for  them- 
selves. "^^  They  wandered  about  from  place  to  place,  home- 
less and  penniless,  entirely  dependent  on  the  charity  of  the 
people.  But  these  were  poor  themselves,  owing  to  frequent 
taxations,  and  moreover  dared  not  show  too  much  favor  and 
openly  offer  protection  to  those  on  whom  the  hand  of  the 
king  had  fallen  so  heavily.  Of  the  ejected  friars,  none  suf- 
fered greater  hardships  than  the  priests.  "Only  one  or 
two  individuals, ' '  says  Gasquet,  ' '  were  granted  any  pension 
for  their  support.  As  a  rule  a  few  shillings  (on  an  average 
apparently  about  five  shillings)  was  delivered  to  each  one 

34.  Parkinson,  Part  II,  p.  7;  Staunton,  The  Great  Schools  of  England, 
pp.  442-402  ;  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  Vol.  XIV,  p.  844. 

35.  Parkinson,  Part  II,  pp.  25  seq. ;  Leon,  Aureole  Sfraphique,  Engl, 
transl..  Vol.  IV,  p.  352,  footnote. — Anthony  Wood  was  born  in  1632  .ind 
died  in  1695. 

36.  Gasquet,  Henry  Till  ....  Monafitrrir.^,  Vol.  II.  p.  454. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  181 

on  being  turned  out  into  the  world  to  find  their  own  living 
as  best  they  might.  Even  when  they  secured  what  is  known 
as  a  'capacity' — that  is,  permission  to  act  as  one  of  the 
secular  clergy — employment  was  by  no  means  easy  to  be 
obtained.  The  bishops  were  no  lovers  of  the  wandering 
friars,  and  the  destruction  of  so  many  churches  diminished 
the  possibility  of  obtaining  any  cure  of  souls,  even  had  they 
been  willing  to  present  them  to  any.  "^"  Hence  we  hear 
Richard  Ingworth  pleading  on  their  behalf  with  Cromwell. 
'  *  They  are  very  poor, ' '  he  writes  to  the  minister,  ' '  and  can 
have  little  service  without  their  capacities.  The  bishops  and 
curates  are  very  hard  to  them,  without  they  have  their 
capacities.  "^^  On  another  occasion,  the  same  commissioner 
informs  Cromwell,  ' '  I  have  written  to  divers  of  the  bishops 
and  with  divers  I  have  spoken  to  license  them  (the  friars) 
till  after  j\Iichaelmas,  and  at  that  time  I  have  promised  to 
send  their  license  to  certain  places  where  they  shall  have 
them  free,  for  the  most  part  of  them  have  no  penny  to  pay 
for  the  charge  of  them. '  '^^ 

To  what  measures  individuals  would  resort  in  their  ex- 
treme need,  we  learn  from  the  case  of  Fr.  Richard  Sharpe. 
Unable  to  procure  an  instrument  that  would  commend  him 
to  some  bishop  and  legalize  his  acting  as  priest,  he  borrowed 
the  one  which  his  confrere,  Fr.  John  Young,  had  obtained. 
Of  this  he  made  a  copy  in  his  own  name  and,  as  may  be  sup- 
posed, presented  it  to  some  bishop.  But  the  forgery  was 
discovered  and,  in  April,  1539,  Fr.  Sharpe  was  arraigned 
for  treason  and  condemned  to  be  hanged,  drawn,  and  quar- 
tered. For  some  reason  or  other,  the  sentence  was  not 
carried  out  and  later  the  friar  was  set  at  liberty.*" 

Another  circumstance  that  caused  the  ejected  friars 
great  anguish  of  soul  was  the  fact  that  government  spies 
were  closely  watching  their  every  movement.  Any  word  or 
act  of  theirs  that  could  be  interpreted  as  a  sign  of  dissatis- 

37.  Gasquet,  Ibidem,  p.  273. 

38.  Wright,  p.   193. 

39.  Wriglit.  p.  210. 

40.  Gasquet,  Ibidem,  p.  471, 


182  FRANCISCANS  AND 

faction  with  the  late  proceedings  against  them,  was  im- 
mediately reported  to  headquarters.  In  consequence,  the 
poor  friars  knew  not  whom  to  trust  nor  whither  to  turn  for 
comfort  and  relief.  Thus,  in  the  course  of  time,  their  condi- 
tion grew  from  bad  to  worse.  That  in  the  end  some  of  the 
number  gave  way  under  the  pressure  of  want  and  distress 
and  went  over  to  the  king's  side,  is  not  to  be  wondered  at. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  great  majority 
remained  true  to  their  faith  and  calling  and  gradually  suc- 
ceeded in  leaving  their  native  land  for  Ireland,  Scotland, 
and  Flanders,  where,  since  1534,  many  of  their  Reformed 
brethren  of  the  Observance  had  found  a  hearty  welcome. 


CHAPTER  XI 

DIVINE  RETRIBUTION,   1547-1558 

Last  days  of  Henry  VIII — Remorse  and  despair — His  death 
— The  prophecy  of  Fr.  Peyto  fidfilled — Reign  of  Edward 
VI — Efforts  to  introduce  Lutheranism — Further  con- 
fiscation and  spoliation  of  religious  houses — The  "Funus 
Scoti  et  Scotistarum"  at  Oxford — Reign  of  Mary  the 
Catholic — England  reunited  with  the  Church  of  Rome — 
Franciscans  again  at  Greenwich,  London,  and  South- 
ampton— Their  activity  and  influence — Death  of  the 
queen. 

If  ever  an  English  monarch  had  to  taste  the  bitter  fruits 
of  a  life  spent  in  sin  and  crime  and  was  made  to  realize  in 
his  own  person  how  "heavy  lies  the  head  that  wears  a 
crown,"  it  was  Henry  VIII,  during  the  last  years  of  his 
inglorious  reign.  "Widespread  dissatisfaction,  pauperism, 
immorality,  and  religious  indifferentism  among  the  lower 
classes,  who  menacingly  clamored  for  the  charitable  minis- 
trations of  the  ousted  monks  and  friars ;  bitter  discord  and 
senseless  wrangling  on  matters  of  doctrine  among  the 
clergy,^  who  railed  at  one  another  and  chafed  under  the  yoke 
of  the  Six  Articles ;  rivalries  and  intrigues  among  the  cour- 
tiers,- who  were  only  waiting  for  the  death  of  their  royal 
patron  to  satisfy  their  own  greed  and  ambitious  designs; 
strained  relations  and  open  hostilities  with  foreign  powers, 

1.  In  his  last  speech  in  parliament  on  religion,  Henry  VIII  deeply 
lamented  the  dissensions  among  the  clergy.  See  Lingard,  History  of  Eng- 
land, Vol.  V,  pp.  99  seq.  In  his  Church  History  of  England,  Vol.  I,  pp. 
315  seq.,  Dodd  brings  a  copy  of  this  ispeech. 

2.  Cromwell  had  betrayed  his  trust  both  as  minister  and  as  vicar 
general.  On  June  10,  1540,  he  was  arrested  for  embezzling  and  misapply- 
ing royal  funds  and  subjected  to  the  bill  of  attainder,  "a  most  iniquitous 
measure,  but  of  which  he  had  no  right  to  complain,  as  he  had  been  the 
first  to,  employ  it  against  others."  In  vain  he  appealed  to  the  King  for 
mercy.  No  one  dared  to  raise  a  voice  in  his  defence,  and  on  July  28,  he 
was  beheaded.     Lingard,  pp.  70  seq. 

183 


184  FRANCISCANS  AND 

who  while  resenting  Henry's  religious  and  political  despo- 
tism, sought  to  profit  by  his  present  helplessness ;  marital 
troubles  within  the  royal  household,  aggravated  by  the 
bodily  ailments  of  the  royal  voluptuary : — such  was  the 
gloom  and  desolation  that  followed  in  the  wake  of  that  dread- 
ful storm  which  Henry's  unbridled  passions  had  conjured 
up  against  the  Church  in  England. 

What  made  his  declining  years  most  miserable  were  the 
pangs  of  remorse  that  harrowed  his  guilty  soul.  Realizing 
that  he  was  at  variance  with  Protestants  as  well  as  Cath- 
olics and  convinced  in  his  heart  that  the  latter  alone  pos- 
sessed the  true  and  saving  faith,  the  unhappy  king  was 
anxious  to  become  reconciled  to  the  Church.  Accordingly, 
as  early  as  1641,  he  sent  Stephen  Gardiner,  Bishop  of  Win- 
chester, to  the  diet  of  Ratisbon,  which  Charles  V  had  sum- 
moned with  the  Pope's  sanction  for  the  purpose  of  restoring 
religious  unity  in  Europe.  Though  the  English  bishoi?  and 
the  German  Emperor  did  all  in  their  power  to  realize  the 
wish  of  Henry  VIII,  nothing  in  the  end  came  of  it,  "be- 
cause," as  Sander  puts  it,  "he  (Henry)  prized  the  glory  of 
men  higher  than  the  glory  of  God."  In  the  autum  of  1546, 
six  months  before  his  death,  the  English  king  took  another 
step  in  this  direction.  Pressed  by  serious  illness  from  which 
he  had  little  hope  of  recovering,  and  harassed  by  qualms  of 
conscience  for  having  severed  the  bond  of  Church  unity,  he 
began  to  consult  privately  with  some  bishops  as  to  how  he 
might  be  reconciled  to  the  Apostolic  See  and  thereby  also 
with  the  Christian  nations.  For  obvious  reasons,  however, 
the  selfish  dignitaries  flattered  him  declaring  that  by  divine 
inspiration  he  had  renounced  the  primac}^  of  the  Pope,  and 
that  he  had  nothing  to  fear  since  his  action  had  been  fully 
sanctioned  by  parliament.  Bishop  Gardiner  alone  wa'='  sin- 
cere; he  suggested  that  Henry  lay  the  affair  before  parlia- 
ment ;  or,  should  time  not  allow  this,  that  he  at  least  commit 
his  wishes  to  writing,  assuring  him  that  God  would  taKe 
his  good  will  for  the  deed.    But  Gardiner's  efforts  proved 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  185 

unavailing  against  the  flattery  and  deceit  of  the  royal 
sycophants.^ 

Finally,  after  months  of  bodily  suffering  and  mental 
anguish,  the  woful  end  came.  Black  despair,  like  a  hideous 
specter,  haunted  the  last  hours  of  the  refractory  king. 
Lying  helpless  on  his  bed  of  pain,  and  staring  wildly  into 
the  darker  recesses  of  the  room,  he  would  groan,  "Monks! 
monks !  "*  On  January  28,  1547,  when  told  that  his  last 
moment  had  come,  he  became  frantic  with  fear  and  despair. 
Calling  for  a  cup  of  wine,  he  turned  feebly  to  one  of  the 
attendants  and  exclaimed,  ' '  All  is  lost ! ' '  then  he  sank  back 
on  his  pillow  and  expired.^ 

On  February  14,  the  corpse  was  conveyed  from  West- 
minster to  Windsor  castle  for  burial.  On  this  occasion,  the 
prophecy  of  Fr.  William  Peyto,  made  fourteen  years  before 
in  the  friary  church  of  Greenwich,  was  literally  fulfilled. 
The  cortege  halted  for  the  night  at  the  monastery  of  Syon. 
During  the  journey,  owing  perhaps  to  the  jogging  of  the 
chariot,  the  coffin  was  damaged  and  the  corpse  injured. 
The  next  morning,  a  pool  of  blood  was  found  on  the  pave- 
ment of  the  church  where  the  remains  had  been  placed.  To 
repair  the  damage,  embalmers  and  plumbers  were  sum- 
moned. They  were  about  to  begin  their  work,  when  "sud- 
denly was  there  found  among  their  legs  a  dog,  lapping  and 
licking  up  the  king's  blood,  as  chanced  to  King  Achab,  be- 
fore specified.  This  chance  one  William  Consell  reported, 
saying  he  was  there  present,  and  with  much  ado  drove  away 
the  said  dog.*^  Such  was  the  horrible  end  of  Henry  VIII, 
whom  Stubbs,  the  Anglican  bishop  and  historian,  charac- 
terizes as  a  "strong,  high-spirited,  ruthless,  disappointed, 

3.  Sander,  De  Origine  ac  Progressu  Schismatis  Anglicani,  ed.  1585, 
pp.  97  seq.,  102  seq. ;  ed.  1690,  pp.  287  seq.,  312  seq. 

4.  Strickland,  Lives  of  the  Queens  of  England,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  256,  on  the 
authority  of  Ilarpsfield. 

5.  Sander,  ed.  1585,  p.  105  ;  ed.  1690,  p.  323. 

6.  Harpsfield,  quoted  by  Hope,  Francit<can  Alartj/rs  in  England,  p.  68. 
See  also  Strickland,  p.  260,  quoting  a  contemporary  document.  According 
to  Hall,  this  incident  occurred  in  the  room  where  Henry  died.  See  Hope, 
p.  67. 


186  FRANCISCANS  AND 

solitary  creature ;  a  thing  to  hate  or  to  pity  or  to  smile  at, 
or  to  shudder  at  or  to  wonder  at,  but  not  to  judge." 

Edward  VI,  the  son  of  Henry  VIII  and  Jane  Seymour, 
was  only  nine  years  old  when  he  ascended  the  throne.^  Dur- 
ing his  brief  reign  (1547  to  1553),  schismatical  England  was 
hurled  into  the  more  dismal  abyss  of  heresy.  Eager  to  safe- 
guard Catholic  dogma  and  practices,  the  late  king  had  pub- 
lished the  Book  of  Articles  and  the  King's  Book  and  had 
compelled  parliament  to  enact  the  Statute  of  the  Six 
Articles.  But  now  the  mighty  monarch  was  dead,  and  the 
very  men  who  had  been  most  obsequious  to  him  in  life,  were 
the  first  to  ignore  his  wishes.  They  made  common  cause 
with  the  foreign  heretics  and  by  degrees  swept  away  the  last 
vestiges  of  Catholic  belief  and  discipline.  Headed  by  Cran- 
mer,  they  hailed  the  accession  of  young  Edward  whom  they 
knew  to  be  thoroughly  imbued  with  heretical  tenets.  What 
encouraged  them  most,  however,  was  the  fact  that  the  Duke 
of  Somerset,  appointed  protector  of  the  realm  during  his 
nephew's  minority,  was  a  zealous  adherent  of  the  new 
teaching.  According  to  Lingard,  eleven-twelfths  of  the 
English  population  were  still  strongly  attached  to  the  old 
faith.^  But  Cranmer  and  Somerset  were  determined  to 
establish  Protestantism,  and  they  left  nothing  undone  to 
carry  out  their  design.  Where  persuasion  and  deception 
failed,  unmasked  tyranny  succeeded.  "They  key-stone  of 
the  arch  had  been  taken  away  when  Henry  broke  with  the 
Head  of  the  Church,  and  the  Sacraments  followed  in  more 
or  less  rapid  succession,  till  by  a  gradual  and  natural 
sequence  nothing  was  left  but  a  heap  of  ruins. '  '^ 

One  of  the  saddest  results  of  the  spoliation  of  religious 
houses  which  continued  during  Edward's  reign,  was  the 

7.  Shortly  before  his  death,  Henry  ordained  that  Edward,  his  son  by 
Jane  Seymour,  was  to  inherit  the  crown,  and  that,  should  he  die  without 
an  heir,  Mary,  Henry's  daughter  by  Catherine  of  Aragon,  was  to  succeed 
him  in  preference  to  Elizabeth,  born  to  him  by  Anne  Boleyn.  "From  this 
it  is  most  certain,"  Sander  infers,  "that  he  repudiated  Catherine  out  of 
malice  and  in  bad  faith,  actuated  solely  by  a  desire  to  possess  himself  of 
Anne  Boleyn."     Sander,  cd.  1585,  p.  105  ;  ed.  1690,  p.  318. 

8.  Lingard,  p.  151. 

9.  Stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  91. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  187 

wholesale  destruction  of  libraries.  Invaluable  manuscripts, 
costly  books,  important  records  and  documents  were  either 
committed  to  the  flames  or  sold  to  shopkeepers  for  a  few 
shillings.  Great,  indeed,  must  have  been  the  havoc,  if  a  con- 
temporary like  Bale  did  not  hesitate  to  declare,  "Our  pos- 
terity may  well  curse  this  wicked  fact  of  our  age,  this 
unreasonable  spoil  of  England's  most  noble  antiquities. "^° 
Already  during  the  preceding  reign,  the  royal  visitors  had 
laid  hands  on  the  valuable  library  of  Oxford  university. 
Layton  informed  Cromwell  that  they  had  bound  Duns 
Scotus  in  Bocardo,  a  prison  in  Oxford,  and  that  they  had 
banished  him  and  all  his  obscure  glosses  from  the  university ; 
he  "is  nowe,"  the  wretch  boasted,  "made  a  comon  ser- 
vant to  evere  man,  faste  nailede  up  upon  postes  in  all 
comon  bowses  of  easment.""  During  Edward's  reign,  in 
1550,  carloads  of  books  were  publicly  burned  in  the  market- 
place at  Oxford.  Here  again,  the  writings  of  Fr.  Duns 
Scotus  were  the  principal  object  of  the  "reformers'  "  rage 
and  vandalism.  His  doctrine,  strictly  in  keeping  with 
Catholic  dogma,  was  as  popular  among  the  scholars  of  the 
past  centuries,  as  it  was  sacred  to  the  Order  to  which  he 
belonged.  This  explains  why  his  works  were  above  all  con- 
spicuous during  that  senseless  demonstration  of  hostility 
toward  Catholic  teaching.  And  further,  to  deal  his  fair 
reputation  a  telling  blow,  the  base  proceedings  were  styled 
Funus  Scoti  et  Scotistariim,  "as  if,"  Parkinson  remarks, 
"the  preeminence  among  Scholastics,  and  the  right  of  pref- 
erence in  the  schools  had  been  due  to  the  Subtle  Doctor 
Duns  Scotus  and  his  followers. '  '^- 

Great  was  the  dismay  of  the  reforming  party,  when,  on 
July  6,  1553,  King  Edward  died  and  Princess  Mary,  the 
daughter  of  Henry  VIII  and  Catherine  of  Aragon,  at  last 
entered  London  amid  the  acclamations  of  the  populace. 

10.  Parkinson,  Antiquities  of  the  Ein/lish  Franciscans,  p.  246.  Bale, 
an  ex-Carmelite,  was  a  bitter  anil  outspoken  enemy  of  papal  supremacy 
and  of  the  religious  Orders. 

11.  Wright,  Suppression  of  the  Monasteries,  p.  71. 

12.  Parkinson,  p.  247. 


188  FRANCISCANS  AND 

The  noble  queen,  whom  long  years  of  suffering  had  taught 
the  value  of  Catholic  faith  and  worship,  was  determined  to 
undo  the  work  of  her  father  and  of  her  brother.  During 
her  first  parliament,  in  1553,  she  had  the  Catholic  liturgy 
and  disciplinary  laws  of  the  Church  reestablished.  On 
November  23,  1554,  Cardinal  Reginald  Pole,  her  kinsman, 
was  joyfully  welcomed  in  London  as  papal  legate  a  latere. 
A  week  later,  in  full  session  of  parliament  and  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  queen  and  her  royal  consort  Philip  II,  of  Spain, 
he  presided  at  the  solemn  ceremony  of  reconciliation,  and 
absolved  them  and  the  entire  nation  "from  all  heresy  and 
schism  and  all  judgments,  censures,  and  penalties  therefor 
incurred."  How  the  heart  of  the  Queen  Mary  must  have 
leaped  for  joy  when  the  hall  reechoed  with  a  fervent 
"Amen"  and  all  the  members  rising  from  their  knees  pro- 
ceeded to  the  chapel,  where  they  chanted  the  Tc  Deum  in 
thanksgiving.^^  Little  did  she  imagine  that  within  a  few 
years  this  joy  would  again  be  turned  into  sorrow. 

Queen  Mary  had  hardly  ascended  the  throne,  when  the 
Franciscans  reappeared  on  the  scene.  Before  the  end  of 
1553,  though  not  yet  officially  recognized,  they  resided  in 
their  old  friary  at  Greenwich.  Naturally,  they  enjoyed  the 
favor  and  esteem  of  their  sovereign.  How  much  had  they 
not  suffered  in  defence  of  her  mother  and  of  the  Holy  See  ? 
"Would  they  be  less  faithful  and  zealous  now  in  her  own 
cause?  Gratitude,  therefore,  as  well  as  prudence  and  jus- 
tice prompted  her  to  rebuild  and  enlarge  their  friary  at 
Greenwich  and  to  recall  those  of  their  Order  who  were  still 
living  in  exile.^*  In  the  spring  of  1555,  the  work  of  restora- 
tion at  Greenwich  was  completed,  and,  on  April  7,  the  sons 
of  St.  Francis  were  solemnly  reinstated  by  the  Bishop  of 
Rochester.^^ 

We  can  easily  imagine  the  joy  of  the  friars  when  they 
returned  to  the  familiar  scenes  of  their  former  labors.  Many 
a  time  they  must  have  recalled  the  trials  of  the  past  years 

13.  Lingard,  p.  223.     See  also  Annales  Minorum,  Vol.  XIX,  pp.  1  seq. 

14.  Parkinson,  p.  251. 

15.  Stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  95. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  189 

and  spoken  with  the  deepest  reverence  of  those  who  had 
since  won  the  crown  of  martyrdom  for  the  faith.  What 
emotions  of  gratitude  to  God  and  to  their  queen  thrilled 
their  hearts,  when  they  assembled  for  choir  and  meditation 
in  the  very  church  where  twent}^  years  before  Fr.  Peyto 
had  so  boldly  defied  the  king  and  his  court.  How  warmly, 
too,  they  welcomed  their  brethren  returning  from  exile. 
Besides  FF.  Peyto  and  Elstow,  there  were  FF.  John  Stand- 
ish,  John  Richel,  and  John  Gray,  all  men  of  singular  vir- 
tue and  learning,  and  the  Spanish  Franciscans  who  had 
accompanied  their  royal  master  Philip  II  to  England.^® 

Gradually  the  number  of  friars  increased,  much  to  the 
satisfaction  of  the  queen,  who  had  two  more  houses,  at  Lon- 
don and  Southampton,  erected  for  them.^"  In  November, 
1555,  twenty-five  friars  were  residing  in  their  convent  at 
Greenwich, ^^  of  which  Fr.  Elstow  was  appointed  guardian. 
Queen  Mary  chose  Fr.  Peyto  as  her  confessor  and  spiritual 
adviser,^**  while  Fr.  Stephen  Fox  apparently-  held  the  office 
of  custos.-°  A  few  names  of  such  as  were  received  into  the 
Order  during  Mary's  reign  have  come  down  to  us.  Fr. 
Richard  Britan,  an  Oxford  scholar,  had  already-  suffered  a 
long  imprisonment  under  Henry  VIII  for  openly  defending 
the  Pope's  supremacy.  Sander,  wlio  knew  him  at  Oxford, 
tells  us  that  he  was  a  man  of  great  mortification.  He  died 
shortly  after  his  reception  at  the  Greenwich  friar3\-^  The 
other  novices,  FF.  George  Dennis,  Thomas  Bourchier  and 
NN.  Nelson,"-  lived  to  witness  the  renewed  persecution  that 
began  with  the  accession  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 

Needless  to  say,  the  Franciscans  were  awake  to  the  press- 
ing needs  of  the  times,  and  with  their  customary  zeal  began 
to  minister  to  the  spiritual  wants  of  the  people.  "The 
spirit  of  St.  Francis,"  writes  Stone,  "was  once  more  alive 

16.  Parkinson,  pp.  251,  254,  260. 

17.  Ibidem,  p.  251. 

18.  Pastor.  G'cschichtf  der  Paepste  (Freiburg,  1913),  Vol.  VI,  p.  604. 

19.  Parkinson,  p.  251. 

20.  Mason,  Certamen  Seraphicum  Provinciae  Angliae,  p.  15.  See  also 
Parkinson,  p.  257. 

21.  Parkinson,  p.  249. 

22.  Ibidem,  pp.  256  seq.,  261. 


190  FRANCISCANS  AND 

in  the  laud.  The  friars  taught  aud  preached  and  exhorted 
as  before;  and  if  they  were  spurned  and  treated  with  in- 
solence, as  sometimes  happened  now,  they  taught  and 
preached  and  exhorted  all  the  more.  It  was  the  business  of 
the  shepherds  to  chase  the  wolf  from  the  fold;  it  was  the 
business  of  the  friars  to  repair  the  damages  which  the  wolf 
had  done,  to  bind  up  the  broken  and  confirm  the  weak."-^ 
A  copious  source  of  many  evils  were  the  abuses  to  which 
Sacred  Scripture  had  been  subjected  by  the  heretics.  Fr. 
John  Standish  "observed,  with  great  grief  of  mind,  the 
intolerable  abuses  which  arose  from  the  rash  and  false  in- 
terpretations of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  made  by  women  and 
illiterate  men,  who  were  then  indifferently  permitted  to  read 
those  sacred  books  in  their  mother  language;  and  he  used 
his  utmost  endeavors  to  have  this  weighty  affair  laid  before 
the  parliament,  to  obviate  for  the  future  all  such  abomin- 
able irreverences  being  done  to  the  word  of  God,  to  hinder 
such  profanations  of  the  sacred  text,  and  to  prevent  the 
erroneous  and  dangerous  impressions  apt  to  be  made  on  the 
minds  of  the  ignorant  people  by  the  ridiculous  explications 
of  taylors,  weavers,  coblers,  silly  women,  and  all  sorts  of 
mechanicks,  who  filled  the  thoughts  of  their  unwary  hearers 
with  such  remarks  as  were  unworthy  the  holy  mysteries  of 
the  Christian  faith.  On  these  important  considerations 
Standish  writ  and  published  a  book  upon  this  subject,  and 
entitled  his  work,  Of  not  publishing  the  Bible  in  vulgar 
Languages."^*  In  a  sermon  held  before  court,  Fr.  Alfonso 
Castro,  a  Spanish  Franciscan,  denounced  the  Council  for 
taking  measures  against  the  heretics,  that  were  not  in  keep- 
ing with  the  Christian  law  of  charity.^^     This  same  friar 

23.  stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  100. 

24.  Parkinson,  p.  251. 

25.  Ibidem,  p.  250  ;  Stone,  Mary  the  First,  Queen  of  England,  p.  264  ; 
Pastor,  p.  5S5  ;  Lingard,  p.  231.  For  these  rigorous  proceeding.s  of  the 
Council  against  obstinate  heretics,  Protestant  historians  lay  the  blame  on 
Queen  Mary  and  consequently  style  her  "Bloody  Mary."  For  a  critical  and 
lucid  refutation  of  this  groundless  charge,  we  refer  the  reader  to  Stone's 
Mary  the  First,  Queen  of  England,  chapter  xiii.  "It  is  as  great  an  his- 
torical absurdity,"  the  author  of  this  best  work  on  Queen  Mary  maintains, 
"to  apply  to  Mary  the  epithet  'bloody,'  as  it  is  to  attach  that  of  'good' 
to,  Queen  Elizabeth"    (p.  371). 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  191 

held  his  famous  controversy  \vith  Cranmer  in  Boeardo  prison 
at  Oxford  and  finall}^  induced  him  to  sign  a  recantation  of 
his  heretical  tenets.^** 

How  the  heretics  were  disposed  toward  the  friars,  and 
how  they  even  resorted  to  open  violence  against  them,  may 
be  seen  from  the  following  incident.  One  day,  FF.  Peyto 
and  Elstow  were  returning  home  from  London,  when  sud- 
denly a  mob  gathered  to  assault  them.  Seeing  the  danger  to 
which  they  were  exposed,  the  friars  made  good  their  escape 
by  leaping  into  a  boat.  They,  indeed,  saved  their  lives,  but 
someone  in  the  crowd  hurled  a  stone,  which  struck  Fr. 
Peyto  and  broke  one  of  his  ribs."  Queen  Mary,  on  the  con- 
trary, repeatedly  showed  that  she  favored  the  friars.  As 
we  have  heard,  she  provided  them  with  three  convents.  On 
Saturday,  March  21,  1555,  Cardinal  Pole  was  ordained 
priest  at  Lambeth,  and  on  the  following  day,  he  said  his 
first  Mass  and  received  the  episcopal  consecration  in  the 
Franciscan  church  at  Greenwich,  in  the  presence  of  the 
queen  and  the  entire  court.^^  In  August  of  the  same  year, 
shortly  before  King  Philip's  departure  for  the  continent, 
their  majesties  went  in  solemn  procession  to  the  friary 
church  at  Greenwich.-^  Subsequently,  while  her  royal  con- 
sort was  abroad,  the  queen  resided  in  the  Greenwich  palace, 
and  we  may  suppose  that  she  was  in  frequent  consultation 
with  Fr.  Peyto,  her  confessor  and  spiritual  adviser.  A  year 
later,  however,  the  relation  between  the  queen  and  Fr. 
Peyto  was  perhaps  less  cordial.  In  view  of  his  learning  and 
virtue  and  in  reward  for  his  unswerving  loyalty  to  the 

26.  Parkinson,  p.  150;  Stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  101.  Cranmer, 
■who  had  done  so  much  harm  to  the  Church  and  State  in  England  during 
the  reign  of  Henry  VIII  and  Edward  VI,  is  without  doubt  one  of  the  most 
despicable  figures  in  English  history.  When,  after  a  life  of  crime  and 
scandal,  he  was  finally  convicted  of  heresy  and  handed  over  to  the  secular 
arm,  he  basely  feigned  repentance,  hoping  thereby  to  save  his  life.  Queen 
Mary,  only  too  eager  to  believe  the  hypocrite,  although  he  had  wronged 
her  so  greatly,  would  have  used  all  her  influence  in  his  behalf.  But  puldic 
justice  demaiaded  retribution.  On  the  day  of  his  execution,  the  wretched 
man  publicly  recanted  all  the  previous  recantations  he  had  made  and  died 
an  apostate  and  a  heretic. 

27.  Parkinson,  pp.  249,  253. 

28.  stone,  Mary  .  ...  of  England,  p.  408,  footnote,  on  the  authority 
of  Wriothesley. 

29.  Stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  97  ;  Strickland,  p.  567. 


192  FRANCISCANS  AND 

Church,  Pope  Paul  IV,  with  the  unanimous  approval  of  the 
Cardinals,  created  him  Cardinal  and  appointed  him  to  suc- 
ceed Cardinal  Pole  as  legate  a  latere  in  England.=^°  Prior 
to  1547,  while  yet  in  exile,  the  distinguished  friar  had  been 
named  Bishop  of  Salisbury;  but  in  his  humility  he  gladly 
relinquished  his  claim,  when  Bishop  Salcot  (Capon),  a 
nominee  of  Henry  VIII,  returned  to  the  old  faith.^^  Little 
then  need  we  be  surprised  if  now  he  used  every  lawful 
means  to  escape  the  new  dignity  thrust  upon  him,  the  more 
so  because  this  appointment  was  to  the  prejudice  of  Car- 
dinal Pole,  whom  he  loved  as  a  friend  and  esteemed  as  a 
man  of  eminent  qualities.  ' '  No  one, ' '  says  Stone,  ' '  felt  his 
incompetency  for  the  dignity  and  office  conferred  upon  him 
more  than  Fr.  Peyto  himself,  and  he  entreated  the  Pontiff 
to  be  allowed  to  decline  them,  as  too  great  a  burden  for  the 
old  shoulders. '  '^-  In  a  letter  to  the  Pope,  he  stated  that  he 
could  not  show  himself  in  the  streets  of  London  without  be- 
ing insulted.^^  But  the  Pope  insisted  and  demanded  that 
he  come  to  Rome ;  whereupon,  it  seems,  Fr.  Peyto  departed 
for  the  continent.  He  remained  in  France,  where  in  April, 
1558,  he  departed  this  life.^*  How  little  this  affair  estranged 
the  queen  from  the  friars  may  be  seen  from  the  fact  that  in 
her  last  will,  dated  April  30,  1558,  she  bequeathed  five  hun- 
dred pounds  to  the  guardian  and  convent  of  the  Franciscan 
friars  at  Greenwich  and  two  hundred  pounds  to  those  at 
Southampton.^^ 

Worry  over  the  coldness  and  neglect  of  Philip  II,  her 
royal  consort,  and  anxiety  regarding  the  succession  to  the 
throne,  had  gradually  undermined  the  health  of  Queen 
Mary.  To  this  came  the  fall  of  Calais,  on  January  8,  1558, 
a  disaster  which  made  the  public  mind  restive  and  distrust- 
ful, and  which  was  a  severe  blow  not  only  to  the  queen  but 

30.  Annales  Minorum,  Vol.  XIX,  pp.  110,  113. 

31.  Ibidem,  Vol.  XIX,  pp.  109,  113.  See  also  Stone,  Faithful  Unto 
Death,  p.  96,  footnote. 

32.  Stone,  Ma7-y  .  ...  of  England,  p.  457. 

33.  Pastor,  Vol.  VI,  p.  608. 

34.  Avnale.9  Minorum,  Vol.  XIX.  p.  113.  See  also  Leon,  Aureole 
Seraphique  Engl.  tr..  p.  357,  footnote. 

35.  Stone,  Mary  .  ...  of  England,  pp.  507    seq. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  193 

also  to  the  cause  of  the  Catholic  Church  so  dear  to  her  heart. 
During  the  following  spring  and  autumn,  her  health  sank 
rapidly  so  that  with  the  advent  of  autumn  she  felt  her  end 
fast  approaching.  Anxious  that  the  work  of  restoration  be 
continued  after  her  death,  and  at  the  same  time  justly- 
doubting  the  orthodoxy  of  Princess  Elizabeth,  who  would 
succeed  her  as  queen,  she  sent  commissioners  to  examine  her 
on  the  matter  of  religion.  The  unscrupulous  Princess  swore 
that  she  was  a  Catholic;  and  accordingly,  on  November  6, 
the  queen  sent  her  jewels  to  Elizabeth,  again  requesting  her 
to  further  the  old  religion,  when  once  the  reins  of  govern- 
ment would  be  in  her  hands.  Finally,  on  the  morning  of 
November  17,  the  end  came.  A  priest  was  celebrating  holy 
Mass  in  her  room ;  and  when  he  ' '  took  the  Sacred  Host  to 
consume  it,  she  adored  it  with  her  voice  and  countenance, 
presently  closed  her  eyes  and  rendered  her  blessed  soul  to 
God."^®  She  was  laid  to  rest  on  December  14,  in  West- 
minster Abbey  on  the  north  side  of  Henry  VII's  chapel. 
It  was  the  last  royal  funeral  conducted  in  England  accord- 
ing to  the  rites  of  the  Catholic  Church. 

36.  Il)idem,   pp.   46G   seq.      That   same   clay,   at  seven    in   the   evening, 
Cardinal  Pole  breathed  his  last. 


CHAPTER  XII 

UNDER  THE  LAST  TUDOR,  1558-1603 

Queen  Elizaheth's  perfidy — Excomniunicated  by  the  Pope 
— The  persecution  against  Catholics  revived — Queen 
Elizaheth  and  the  Franciscans — The  friars  expelled  and 
banished — One  of  the  exiles,  a  martyr — Franciscans  in 
England  during  Elizabeth's  reign — Fr.  John  Storrens 
martyred  in  1572 — Venerable  Godfrey  Buckley,  0.  F.  M. 
— At  first  a  secidar  priest — Joins  the  Franciscans  in 
Rome — On  the  English  mission — Seized  and  imprisoned 
— Tried  and  condemned  to  death  for  being  a  priest — His 
martyrdom. 

Queen  Mary  departed  this  life,  trusting  that  her  sister 
was  as  good  as  her  word  and  that  she  would  continue  the 
work  of  restoration.  On  January  15,  1559,  Princess  Eliza- 
beth submitted  to  the  ancient  Catholic  coronation  ceremo- 
nies, received  Holy  Communion  and  under  solemn  oath 
promised  allegiance  to  the  Pope  and  the  Church  of  Rome. 
Deep  down  in  her  heart,  however,  the  unscrupulous  and 
treacherous  queen  was  contemplating  a  final  and  decisive 
blow  at  Catholic  doctrine  and  worship.  No  sooner  was  she 
firmly  seated  on  the  throne,  to  which  she  well  knew  Mary 
Stuart,  Queen  of  Scotland,  had  a  better  right,  than  she 
threw  off  the  mask  and  began  undoing  the  work  of  her 
saintly  predecessor. 

During  the  reign  of  her  father,  Henry  VIII,  the  Eng- 
lish hierarchy  proved  all  too  pliant  to  the  will  of  their 
monarch.  Now,  however,  having  learned  by  experience  that 
schism  and  heresy  were  practically  inseparable,  the  bishops 
firmly  opposed  every  encroachment  of  the  government  on 
the  rights  of  the  Church  and  of  the  Holy  See.     Elizabeth, 

194 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  195 

therefore,  justly  fearing  a  too  rigorous  pursuit  of  her  proj- 
ect might  enkindle  a  general  uprising  against  her,  counseled 
her  ministers  to  proceed  slowly  and  cautiously.  After  1570, 
however,  when  Pope  Pius  V,  after  much  pleading  and  long 
waiting,  finally  excommunicated  Elizabeth  and  freed  the 
people  from  allegiance  to  her,  the  storm  of  persecution 
against  Catholics  broke  forth  in  full  fury.  It  is  not  our 
purpose  here  to  depict  in  detail  how  this  terrible  woman, 
supported  by  a  few  cringing  courtiers,  abused  her  Catholic 
subjects  and  at  last  succeeded  in  establishing  Anglicanism 
as  the  State  religion.  Suffice  it  to  say,  during  the  forty- 
five  years  of  her  reign,  "good  Queen  Bess"  proved  in  her 
public  as  well  as  in  her  private  life  a  worthy  daughter  of 
Henry  VIII  and  Anne  Boleyn. 

"With  deep  regret  the  English  Franciscans  witnessed  this 
second  storm  of  religious  persecution  gather  over  the  coun- 
try.^ As  to  themselves,  they  knew  quite  well  that  Elizabeth 
hated  them  in  particular  for  the  boldness  and  determina- 
tion with  which  in  years  gone  by  they  had  opposed  her 
worthless  mother,  questioned  her  own  legitimacy,  cham- 
pioned the  rights  of  the  papacy,  and,  during  the  preceding 
reign,  helped  to  reestablish  Catholic  doctrine  and  worship. 
Little  then  were  they  surprised  when  on  June  12,  1559,  one 
of  her  first  measures  was  to  seize  their  friary  at  Greenwich 
and  to  banish  all  the  members  of  their  Order  from  England. 
Many  of  the  friars  refused  to  leave  the  country,  while  others 
trusting  in  Divine  Providence,  once  more  wandered  into 
exile  and  at  last  found  a  home  among  their  brethren  on  the 
continent. 

In  the  Province  of  Lower  Germany,  Davenport  tells  us, 
many  of  the  English  friars  distinguished  themselves  as  men 
of  eminent  virtue  and  learning.  Since  his  banishment  un- 
der Henry  VIII,  Fr.  Henry  Holstam  had  been  twice  ap- 

1.  Unless  otherwise  stated,  our  sources  of  information  regarding  the 
English  Franciscans  at  home  and  abroad  during  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  are 
Fr.  Angelus  Mason,  Certamen  l<crai)liictim  :  Fr.  Luke  Wadding,  Annales 
Minorum;  Fr.  Anthony  Parkinson,  Antiquities  of  the  English  Francisca)is, 
■whose  authorities  besides  Mason  are  chiefly  Fr.  Francis  Davenport,  Fr. 
Francis  Gonzaga.  Anthony   Wood  and  Jeremy  Collier. 


196  FRANCISCANS  AND 

pointed  visitor  of  this  province  and,  in  1549,  he  was  elected 
its  provincial  minister.  Other  English  friars  taught 
theology  in  the  Franciscan  convent  at  Louvain  so  success- 
fully that  to  them,  as  Fr.  Pinchart  later  admitted,  the  mem- 
bers of  the  province  were  indebted  for  their  learning. 
Among  those  who  ended  their  days  in  this  province  was  Fr. 
John  Elstow,  who  apparently  returned  to  Lower  Germany, 
when  Elizabeth  expelled  the  Order  from  England. 

Fr.  Thomas  Bourchier  was  a  descendant  of  the  earls  of 
Bath.  He  received  his  classical  education  at  Magdalen  Col- 
lege, Oxford,  and  joined  the  Franciscans  at  Greenwich  to- 
ward the  close  of  Queen  Mary's  reign.  Later,  together 
with  Fr.  Thomas  Langton,  also  an  English  exile,  he  con- 
tinued his  studies  at  the  Sorbonne  in  Paris  and  subsequently 
obtained  the  doctor's  degree.  Thereupon,  he  went  to  Rome 
and  lived  in  the  famous  Franciscan  friary  of  Ara  Coeli. 
Here  he  died  about  the  year  1586.  Pits  who  knew  the 
eminent  friar  in  Rome  tells  us  that  he  was  a  man  of  extraor- 
dinary piety  and  learning  and  deserved  well  of  his  Order 
and  of  the  Church  of  Christ.  He  is  the  author  of  the  much- 
quoted  Historia  Ecclesiastica,  a  brief  account  of  the  martyr- 
dom of  the  Franciscans  in  England,  Belgium,  and  Ireland 
between  the  years  1536  and  1582. 

Fr.  John  Standish,  who  distinguished  himself  during 
Queen  Mary's  reign  as  a  zealous  and  fearless  defender  of 
the  Sacred  Scriptures,  was  a  nephew  of  Fr.  Henry  Standish, 
at  one  time  provincial  of  the  English  Franciscans  and  later 
Bishop  of  Asaph.  Fr.  John  was  clothed  with  the  habit  of 
St.  Francis  shortly  before  the  first  outbreak  of  the  persecu- 
tion under  Henry  VIII.  When  the  dissolution  of  religious 
houses  began,  he  went  to  Paris  and  after  the  usual  course  of 
studies  merited  the  doctor's  degree  in  theology.  He  re- 
turned to  his  native  land  during  the  restoration  and  de- 
parted this  life  shortly  before  the  outbreak  of  ,the  second 
storm.  Pits  says  that  Fr.  John  was  "a  man  celebrated  for 
learning,  piety,  faith  and  zeal  for  the  honor  of  God." 

Fr.  George  Dennis  was  born  of  a  prominent  family  in 


'    THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  197 

Devonshire.  In  1545,  when  the  English  laid  siege  to 
Boulogne,  he  served  his  country  as  royal  standard-bearer. 
In  1558,  however,  he  renounced  the  world  and  joined  the 
Franciscans  at  Greenwich.  He  was  still  a  novice,  when 
Elizabeth  banished  the  friars.  Filled  with  holy  zeal,  Fr. 
George  refused  to  leave  the  Order  and  departed  with  his 
brethren  for  the  continent.  About  the  year  1585,  the  saintly 
friar  died  and  was  buried  in  the  Franciscan  convent  of 
Liege,  where  he  had  spent  the  greater  part  of  his  holy  life. 

In  the  second  year  of  Elizabeth 's  reign,  Fr.  Stephen  Fox 
likewise  left  England  and  came  to  the  convent  of  St.  Fran- 
cis in  Antwerp.  Some  time  later,  when  the  city  was  plun- 
dered by  the  heretics,  he  was  again  forced  to  flee.  With 
about  twenty  English  Poor  Clares,  he  at  first  went  to  Rouen 
and  later  proceeded  to  Lisbon  in  Portugal,  where  Philip  II 
had  a  convent  erected  for  the  nuns.  Fr.  Stephen  died  in 
Lisbon,  in  1588,  and  was  laid  to  rest  in  the  church  of  the 
Poor  Clares. 

Another  English  Franciscan  priest,  who  probably  be- 
longed to  the  Greenwich  community,  was  Fr.  John  Richel. 
He  entered  the  Order  during  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII  and 
lived  to  witness  the  utter  ruin  of  the  once  glorious  Fran- 
ciscan province  in  England.  Seventy-two  years  of  his  life 
he  spent  as  a  true  and  faithful  son  of  St.  Francis,  highly 
esteemed  for  virtue  and  holiness.  The  venerable  jubilarian 
passed  to  his  eternal  reward  in  the  friary  at  Louvain  about 
the  year  1599,  having  attained  the  ripe  old  age  of  ninety- 
seven  years. 

When  Elizabeth  banished  the  Franciscans,  a  certain  Fr. 
Richard  (his  surname  is  not  known)  for  a  time  defied  the 
queen  and  bravely  continued  to  labor  for  the  spiritual  wel- 
fare of  his  persecuted  countrymen.  At  last,  however,  he 
was  arrested  for  being  a  priest  and  thrown  into  prison. 
After  a  long  and  severe  confinement,  he  was  for  some  reason 
or  other  set  free  and  banished.  He  spent  the  remainder  of 
his  life  in  the  Franciscan  province  of  Andalusia  in  Spain 
and  died  at  Herez  de  la  Frontera,  in  1619,    So  great  was 


198  FRANCISCANS  AND 

his  reputation  for  sanctity  that  after  his  death  the  towns- 
folk cut  bits  of  cloth  from  his  habit,  and  treasured  them  as 
the  relics  of  a  saint.^ 

Of  the  English  Franciscans  who  were  living  in  exile,  Fr. 
John  Gray  alone  attained  the  martyr's  crown.  He  was  the 
son  of  a  noble  and  wealthy  English  family,^  and  at  the  time 
of  his  martyrdom  resided  in  the  Franciscan  convent  at 
Brussels.  During  the  absence  of  Don  Juan  of  Austria,  a 
horde  of  fanatical  sectaries  entered  the  city  and  set  about 
molesting  the  Catholics  and  plundering  the  churches.  As 
in  England,  so  also  here  the  Franciscans  were  especially 
odious  to  the  heretics.  On  June  5,  1579,  their  friary  was 
assailed.  When  the  porter,  Fr.  James  Leisman,  an  English 
lay  Brother,  saw  the  mob  approaching,  he  barricaded  the 
doors  and  warned  his  brethren  of  the  impending  danger. 
While  the  terror-stricken  friars  made  good  their  escape,  one 
of  the  community  was  both  unable  and  unwilling  to  flee.  It 
was  Fr.  John  Gray,  a  man  of  seventy  winters,  who  had 
spent  the  greater  part  of  his  religious  life  in  exile.  ' '  Let  us 
stay  in  God's  house,"  he  exhorted  the  fleeing  friars;  "where 
can  we  die  so  happily  as  in  the  presence  of  the  Blessed 
Sacrament,  on  the  holy  spot  where  we  hope  to  be  buried." 
But  his  words  fell  on  deaf  ears ;  Fr.  James  alone  remained 
with  the  aged  and  infirm  priest. 

By  this  time,  the  infuriated  mob  had  forced  their  way 
into  the  friary.  Meeting  the  porter,  they  beat  him  with 
cudgels  until  he  lost  consciousness.  Leaving  him  for  dead, 
they  rushed  madly  to  the  church,  where  they  found  Fr. 
John  kneeling  before  the  Blessed  Sacrament.  Like  raven- 
ous wolves,  they  seized  hira  and  began  to  insult  and  mal- 
treat him.  Hardly  knowing  what  he  did,  so  great  were  his 
pain  and  terror,  the  venerable  friar  begged  his  enemies  to 

2.  Thomas  Felton,  martyred  for  the  faith  in  158S,  and  Henry  More,  a 
nephew  of  Bl.  Thomas  More,  were  not  Franciscans,  as  is  frequently  stated, 
but  Minims.  This  on  the  authority  of  Fr.  Livarius  Oliger  in  The  Catliolic 
Encyclopedia,  Vol.  X,  p.  325. 

3.  Bourehier,  whose  Hist.  Eccle.  de  Mart.  FF.  Ord.  D.  Francisoi,  Is 
our  chief  source  of  information  regardin?  this  friar,  affirms  with  other 
chroniclers  that  he  was  of  Scotch  extraction. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  199 

spare  him.  "What,"  cried  the  ruffians,  "shall  we  spare 
thee,  thou  wretch ! ' '  Thereupon  one  of  the  mob  drew  his 
sword  and  dealt  the  innocent  priest  a  severe  blow  on  the 
head.  Mortally  wounded  the  martyr  fell  to  the  floor  and 
with  a  kindly,  "I  certainly  forgive  you,"  he  passed  to  his 
eternal  reward.  Bourchier  relates  that  Fr.  John  bore  the 
stigmata  of  St.  Francis  on  his  feet,  adding  that  he  himself 
had  the  privilege  of  seeing  them.  The  martyred  priest  was 
known  far  and  wide  for  his  great  sanctity.  Hence,  when 
the  people  heard  that  he  had  laid  down  his  life  for  the  faith, 
they  hastened  to  the  friary  to  do  homage  to  his  mortal  re- 
mains. Bourchier  further  attests  that  a  miracle  was  wrought 
through  intercession  of  the  martyr.  A  man  who  was  near 
death,  on  learning  what  had  happened  in  the  Franciscan 
friary,  asked  that  a  cloth  dipped  in  the  martyr's  blood  be 
brought  to  him.  On  receiving  it,  the  dying  man  kissed  it 
reverently,  whereupon  he  was  immediately  restored  to 
health. 

Not  all  the  friars  left  their  country  and  died  in  exile. 
A  large  percentage  ignored  Elizabeth's  orders,  remained 
secretly  with  their  flock,  and  sought  in  every  way  to  coun- 
teract the  efforts  of  those  illiterate  and  malevolent  preachers 
to  whom  the  government  entrusted  the  dissemination  of 
heresy.  Needless  to  say,  indescribable  hardships  and  count- 
less obstacles  confronted  the  friars  at  every  turn.  Robbed 
of  their  cherished  friaries,  they  wandered  about  from  place 
to  place,  discharging  their  religious  and  priestly  duties  as 
best  they  might.  To  be  ordained  priest ;  to  shelter,  aid,  or 
support  a  priest;  to  celebrate  or  assist  at  the  Sacrifice  of 
Mass;  to  administer  or  receive  the  sacraments — all  these 
were  crimes  punishable  with  fines  or  imprisonment,  and 
eventually  with  death  on  the  scaffold.  Towns  and  hamlets 
were  infested  with  spies  who,  like  Topcliffe,  were  ever  on 
the  alert  for  priests  and  religious  and  glorified  in  ferreting 
out  their  secret  hiding-places.  Hence  we  can  readily  con- 
ceive how  constant  fear  and  anxiety  lest  their  labor  of  love 
be  cut  short  and  the  people  grow  weak  for  want  of  spiritual 


200  FRANCISCANS  AND 

Bustenance,  frequently  drove  the  hunted  friars  into  secluded 
caves  and  holes,  where  for  weeks  and  months  they  eked  out 
a  miserable  existence.  Accustomed,  as  they  were,  to  com- 
munity life  with  its  thousand  charms  and  blessings,  their 
condition  was  particularly  distressing.  They  no  longer  had 
their  friaries  whither  they  might  return  after  a  day's 
arduous  labor  to  find  peace  and  rest.  No  longer  could  they 
seek  the  fatherly  counsels  of  a  prudent  superior  or  share  the 
sympathy  and  genialit}^  of  a  loving  fellow  friar.  All  this 
was  a  thing  of  the  past ;  they  were  now  thrown  on  their  own 
resources.  They  dared  not  appear  publicly  in  their  habit 
or  with  any  distinctive  mark  of  their  sacred  character,  but 
had  to  go  about  in  disguise  and  under  assumed  names,  on 
which  account,  we  may  suppose,  they  were  in  many  cases 
unable  to  identify  themselves  before  the  people  on  whose 
charity  they  depended  for  the  necessaries  of  life. 

Still,  if  the  lot  of  the  wandering  friars  was  hard  and 
distressing,  their  wonted  zeal  for  the  things  of  God  was 
none  the  less  fervent  and  self-sacrificing.  We  find,  there- 
fore, that  all  through  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  there  were  al- 
ways Franciscans  in  the  mission-fields  of  England,  ready  to 
suffer  everything,  even  death  itself,  for  the  salvation  of 
immortal  souls.  Prudence,  of  course,  demanded  that  they 
perform  their  duties  in  the  greatest  secrecy.  Hence  it  is 
that  to-day  we  find  so  little  recorded  regarding  the  activity 
of  these  men  of  God,  and  are  restricted  for  a  general  esti- 
mate of  their  life  and  labors  to  a  few  isolated  facts  that 
chanced  to  come  to  the  notice  of  the  chroniclers. 

A  number  of  friars  were  at  last  captured  by  the  royal 
emissaries  and  thrown  into  prison,  where  they  ended  their 
days  in  misery  and  oblivion.  Thus  it  is  known  that,  in 
1583,  a  certain  Fr,  Thomas  Ackrick  lay  confined  as  prisoner 
in  Hull  Castle.*  Others,  like  Fr.  Tonstall,  vexed  the  gov- 
ernment by  the  boldness  with  which  they  toiled  in  the  vine- 
yard of  the  Lord.  Others,  finally,  defied  and  baffled  the 
queen's  priest-catchers.     Thus,  for  instance,  Fr.  Gregory 

4,  Thaddeus,  The  Franoiscans  in  England,  p.  19. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  201 

Basset  was  thought  to  be  in  hiding  in  Herefordshire;  but, 
although  his  enemies  were  constantly  on  the  look-out  for 
him,  they  apparently  never  succeeded  in  getting  him  into 
their  clutches.  In  fine,  so  great  was  the  number  of  Fran- 
ciscans in  England  at  this  time  that,  as  Hope  says,  "even 
in  the  first  year  of  Elizabeth's  reign  the  government  was 
greatly  irritated  against  them,  and  attributed  to  their  zeal 
the  want  of  unity  among  Protestants. '  '^  Only  regarding  a 
few  individuals  have  some  interesting  details  been  trans- 
mitted to  posterity. 

One  of  the  first  priests  to  suffer  martyrdom  during  the 
reign  of  Elizabeth  was  Fr.  John  Storrens.  Nothing  is 
known  regarding  the  early  life  of  this  friar  except  the  fact 
that  he  was  a  native  of  England.  At  the  time  of  Queen 
Mary,  he  was  teaching  at  Oxford  and  held  the  offices  of 
chancellor  of  the  university  and  grand-inquisitor  in  the 
government's  proceedings  against  heresy.  It  was  very 
likely  when  Elizabeth  ascended  the  throne  and  a  second 
rupture  with  the  Holy  See  threatened  the  Church  in  Eng- 
land, that  he  departed  from  Belgium  and  there  joined  the 
Franciscan  Order.  Meanwhile,  Elizabeth  had  reopened 
hostilities  against  her  Catholic  subjects.  This  induced  Fr. 
John  to  return  to  his  native  land.  How  long  he  succeeded 
in  evading  the  queen's  spies,  is  not  known.  At  last,  how- 
ever, he  was  seized,  cast  into  a  prison,  and,  after  under- 
going the  severest  hardships,  sentenced  to  death.  At  the 
place  of  execution,  the  heroic  friar  fearlessly  exhorted  the 
attending  populace  to  remain  true  to  their  holy  faith.  Then 
at  the  command  of  the  sheriff  he  ascended  the  scaffold. 
While  the  executioner  was  placing  the  rope  about  his  neck, 
a  loud  murmur  of  disapproval  arose  among  the  bystanders. 
There  was  evident  danger  that  a  tumult  would  ensue; 
wherefore  the  executioners  cut  him  down  alive  and  without 
delay  ripped  him  open,  tore  out  his  palpitating  heart  and 
entrails,  and  ruthlessly  split  open  his  head.    The  martyrdom 

5.  Hope,  Franoiscan  Martyrs  in  England,  p.  86. 


202  FRANCISCANS  AND 

took  place  in  1572,  two  years  after  Elizabeth  had  been  ex- 
communicated by  the  Pope.® 

In  his  famous  Ccrtamen  Seraphicum,  Mason  brings  at 
some  length  what  a  religious  priest  related  about  a  certain 
Fr.  John,  commonly  known  as  the  "Old  Beggar."  When 
by  order  of  Elizabeth,  the  Franciscans  had  to  quit  England 
this  saintly  friar  found  refuge  in  the  house  of  Roger  Lock- 
wood  in  the  parish  of  Leyland,  county  Lancaster.  Here  he 
resided  till  about  the  year  1590,  when  death  summoned  him 
to  a  better  life.  So  popular  was  Fr.  John  for  virtue  and 
holiness,  that  the  Earl  of  Derby  prevailed  upon  the  queen 
to  allow  the  harmless  friar  to  wear  his  religious  habit  in 
public,  although  the  penal  laws  against  Catholics  were  then 
in  full  force.  Heaven  favored  Fr.  John  with  the  gift  of 
working  miracles.  And  when  old  age  and  bodily  infirmities 
no  longer  permitted  him  to  wander  about  in  discharge  of 
his  priestly  duties,  the  people  flocked  to  him  from  all  parts 
of  northern  England,  in  order  to  obtain  help  from  him  in 
their  spiritual  and  temporal  needs.  That  he  was  a  Fran- 
ciscan and  not  a  Benedictine,  as  some  claim,  is  quite  certain 
from  the  testimony  of  the  woman  who  served  him  in  his  ill- 
ness. She  was  still  living  when  Mason  wrote  his  Certamen 
Seraphicum  and  testified  that  Fr.  John  never  received  or 
touched  money,  and  that  he  himself  had  told  her  he  was  a 
mendicant  and  a  beggar.  Her  testimony  is  strengthened 
by  that  of  William  Walton,  one  of  the  friar's  penitents, 
who  maintained  that  his  father  confessor  went  about  bare- 
foot and  wore  the  grey  habit  and  the  cord  of  St.  Francis. 

About  the  same  time  that  Fr.  John  closed  his  remark- 
able career,  another  English  Franciscan,  Fr.  Laurence 
Collier,  succumbed  to  the  hardships  of  prison  life.     For  a 

t>.  Gaudentius,  Bedeutung  und  Verdiensts  des  Franziskanerordens 
gegen  den  Proti'stantismtis,  pp.  170  seq.,  whose  sources  of  information 
regarding  this  friar  are  Hueber's  Mcnologiiim,  the  Francii^can  Martiirology, 
Sannig's  Tripl.  Chronic,  Gonzaga,  and  Barrezu.s.  Strange  to  say,  Fr.  John 
Storrens  Is  not  mentioned  in  any  of  the  English  sources  at  our  disposal ; 
his  name  does  not  appear  on  the  list  of  those  who  were  beatified  by  Pope 
Leo  XIII,  on  December  9,  1886;  nor  on  the  list  of  those  whose  cause  of 
beatification  was  proposed  to  the  Sacred  Congregation,  in  the  same  year 
on  December  4.     See  Acta  Minorum,  Vol.  VI, 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  203 

long  time  he  succeeded  in  escaping  the  vigilance  of  the 
notorious  priest-catchers.  But  at  last,  probably  at  Stafford, 
he  was  seized  and  committed  to  prison,  where  after  two  years 
of  intense  suffering  he  departed  this  life  to  share  the  glory 
and  bliss  of  the  next. 

Another  Franciscan  whose  name  sheds  luster  on  the 
history  of  the  English  province  during  these  troublous 
times  was  Fr.  Nelson,  a  priest  of  singular  holiness  and  un- 
daunted zeal.  He  entered  the  Order  during  the  period  of 
restoration.  Subsequently,  during  the  entire  reigns  of 
Elizabeth  and  James  I,  Fr.  Nelson  toiled  and  suffered  in 
the  English  missions.  As  usual,  the  details  regarding  his 
long  and  untiring  activity  were  perhaps  never  recorded. 
All  we  know  is  that  he  spent  the  last  thirty  years  of  his  life 
in  the  house  of  a  Catholic  gentleman,  two  miles  distant  from 
Hereford.  Here,  too,  about  the  year  1628,  the  holy  friar 
breathed  his  last  and  entered  the  realms  of  eternal  joy  to 
receive  the  reward  for  his  long  and  faithful  service  in  the 
Order  of  St.  Francis. 

Fr.  William  Stannej^  (Staney)  was  active  in  England  at 
the  end  of  the  sixteenth  and  the  beginning  of  the  seven- 
teenth centuries.  He  was  a  man  of  acknowledged  virtue 
and  learning,  and,  in  1598,  received  the  official  seal  of  the 
English  province  from  Ven.  Fr.  Godfrey  Buckley,  shortly 
before  the  latter 's  martyrdom.  That  same  year  perhaps, 
the  zealous  missionary  was  taken  prisoner  and  confined  in 
Marshalsea.  History  does  not  tell  us  how  he  regained  his 
liberty.  But  it  is  certain  that  in  1601  he  was  appointed 
commissary  of  the  English  Franciscans.  Of  this  he  himself 
informs  us  in  the  foreword  to  his  Treatise  of  the  Third 
Order  of  St.  Francis,  a  sort  of  manual  which  he  wrote  for 
the  use  of  secular  Tertiaries,  and  which  was  published  at 
Douai  in  1617.  It  was  probably  in  1610  that  he  received 
Fr.  John  Gennings  into  the  Franciscan  Order,  to  whom  also, 
a  few  years  later,  he  entrusted  the  seal  of  the  province.'' 
We  may  say,  therefore,  that  Fr.  William  forms  the  con- 

7.  Thaddeus,  p.  27. 


204  FRANCISCANS  AND 

necting  link  between  the  first  and  the  second  Franciscan 
Province  of  England.  Whether  he  had  any  share  in  the 
founding  of  the  Second  Province,  undertaken  by  Fr.  Gen- 
nings  a  few  years  after  his  reception  into  the  Order,  does 
not  appear  from  the  records.  All  we  know  is  that  in  1620 
he  summoned  to  England  one  of  the  nuns  of  the  Third 
Order  Regular,  who  had  established  themselves  at  Brussels 
and  were  under  the  direction  of  Fr.  Gennings.  "After 
this  year,"  Thaddeus  concludes,  "no  further  mention  oc- 
curs of  Father  Staney,  It  must  only  be  added  that  in  the 
annals  of  the  Order  he  is  praised  for  his  integrity  and  holi- 
ness of  life."^ 

Before  the  close  of  the  century,  at  a  time  when  the 
province  was  almost  extinct,  another  English  Franciscan 
sealed  his  missionary  career  with  the  glorious  crown  of 
martyrdom.®  John  Buckley,  alias  Jones,  was  born  about 
the  year  1530  of  a  prominent  and  wealthy  family  in  Carnar- 
vonshire. Like  the  majority  of  the  people  in  Wales,  his 
parents  had  remained  staunch  and  fervent  Catholics.  Hence 
they  did  not  object  to  their  son's  embracing  the  sacerdotal 
state.  The  place  and  time  of  his  ordination,  however,  is  a 
matter  of  mere  conjecture.  Since  in  later  life  he  was  com- 
monly regarded  an  "old"  priest,  it  seems  probable  that  he 
received  Holy  Orders  during  the  reign  of  Queen  Mary.  No 
doubt,  he  foresaw  what  hardships  his  sacred  profession 
would  involve,  when,  in  1559,  Elizabeth  ascended  the  throne. 
Perhaps  to  prepare  himself  for  the  coming  conflict,  he,  in 
1561,  departed  for  Belgium  in  company  of  his  friend  Wil- 
liam Allen,  who  subsequently  became  a  priest  and  cardinal. 
That  he  returned  with  Allen  a  year  later,  seems  quite  prob- 
able.   His  name  is  not  found  on  the  records  of  the  English 

8.  Ibidem,  p.  20. 

9.  Hope,  Franciscan  Martyrs  in  England,  pp.  89-98 ;  and  Stone,  Faith- 
ful Unto  Death,  pp.  107-113.  They  base  their  narrative  on  a  letter  of 
Father  Henry  Garnet,  S.  J.,  to  the  Father  General  of  the  Society ;  on  a 
manuscript  in  the  library  of  the  University  of  Louvain,  in  which  the  friar's 
trial  and  execution  are  described  apparently  by  an  eye-witness ;  on  the 
Life  of  F.  John  Gerard,  8.  J.,  by  Morris  ;  and  on  Challoner's  Memoirs  of 
Missionary  Priests.  See  also  Mason,  Certamen  Seraphicum,  pp.  16  seq. ; 
and  Parkinson,  Antiquities  of  the  English  Franciscans,  pp.  258  seq. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  205 

College  at  Douai,  from  which  we  may  conclude  that  he  was 
active  in  England  before  1568,  the  year  in  which  Allen 
founded  the  famous  missionary  college. 

Unfortunately,  we  are  left  in  complete  darkness  regard- 
ing the  future  martyr's  priestly  career  previous  to  1582. 
We  can  imagine,  however,  what  his  lot  must  have  been  if 
we  consider  the  perils  and  trials  which  at  the  time  beset  the 
life  of  the  English  missionaries.  He  wandered  about  in 
disguise  and  under  the  aliases  John  or  Griffith  Jones,  Robert 
or  Herbert  Buckley.  Neither  is  it  known  how  long  he  suc- 
ceeded in  escaping  the  clutches  of  the  priest-catchers.  Cer- 
tain is  only  that  he  lay  confined  in  Marshalsea,  a  London 
prison,  before  June,  1582,  and  that  he  was  again  at  large  in 
October,  1586,  under  which  date  his  name  appears  on  the 
list  of  "priests  that  have  been  prisoners  and  were  out  upon 
bond."  Fr.  John,  as  we  have  heard,  was  of  a  prominent 
and  wealthy  family,  and  hence  it  is  not  unlikely  that  some 
friend  of  his  at  court  had  him  released.  A  year  later,  how- 
ever, we  find  him  again  a  prisoner,  this  time  in  Wisbeach 
Castle,  which  fact,  according  to  Hope,  "proves  that  he 
possessed  an  independent  fortune;  for  Elizabeth  was 
economical  in  her  cruel  tyranny,  and  only  those  who  could 
maintain  themselves  were  sent  to  Wisbeach,  while  poorer 
prisoners  were  either  banished  or  hanged. '  '^°  It  was  prob- 
ably here  that  Fr.  John,  leading  with  his  fellow  captives  a 
sort  of  community  life,  conceived  a  liking  for  the  religious 
state  and  resolved,  on  regaining  his  liberty,  to  join  the  Or- 
der of  St.  Francis,  once  so  widespread,  popular,  and  active 
in  England." 

Whether  the  zealous  priest  was  at  last  banished,  or 
whether  he  succeeded  in  escaping  from  prison,  has  not  been 
recorded.  All  we  know  is  that,  in  1590,  he  left  Wisbeach 
Castle  and  forthwith  proceeded  to  Pontoise  in  France, 
where  he  applied  at  the  Conventual  friary  for  admission 

10.  Hope,  p.  91. 

11.  Stone  thinks  (p.  108)  that  "possibly,  at  Wisbeach,  he  encountered 
some  holy  Franciscan,  in  prison  for  the  same  cause  as  himself,  whose 
example  inflamed  him  with  a  desire  for  the  religious  life." 


206  FRANCISCANS  AND 

into  the  Order.  His  request  was  granted,  and  henceforth 
he  was  known  as  Fr.  Godfrey.  Soon  after  he  departed  for 
Rome,  where  he  joined  the  Franciscans  and  spent  three  years 
in  their  friary  of  Ara  Coeli.^^  "To  one,"  says  Hope,  "who 
had  already  borne  the  cross  and  practiced  the  hardships  of 
poverty,  the  further  sacrifice  of  his  worldly  goods  would 
have  cost  little.  But  it  needed  more  than  ordinary  humility 
to  enter  religion  at  nearly  sixty  years  of  age,  and  by  placing 
himself  among  the  novices,  to  submit  himself  to  religious 
superiors,  who  were  probably  his  inferiors  in  years,  suffer- 
ing and  spiritual  experience."  Many  a  time  during  these 
three  years  of  retirement,  Fr.  Godfrey  must  have  thought 
of  and  prayed  for  his  persecuted  countrymen,  whose  condi- 
tion had  by  this  time  become  well-nigh  unbearable.  He 
longed  to  live  and  labor  once  more  in  their  midst,  and  per- 
haps even  hoped  to  gain  in  the  end,  like  so  many  of  his 
brethren,  the  crown  of  martyrdom.  After  completing  his 
religious  training,  he  asked  his  superiors  to  send  him  to  the 
English  missions.  Filled  with  holy  joy  on  learning  that  his 
request  had  been  granted,  he  visited  Pope  Clement  VIII  to 
beg  his  apostolic  blessing.  When  informed  of  the  friar's 
intention,  the  Holy  Father  embraced  him  tenderly,  blessed 
him,  and  said,  ' '  Go,  for  I  believe  you  are  a  true  son  of  St. 
Francis.    Pray  to  God  for  me  and  his  Holy  Church. ' ' 

That  same  year,  1593,  Fr.  Godfrey  arrived  in  London. 
Fr.  Gerard  informs  us  that  the  aged  friar  was  the  first  to 
be  received  into  the  house  which  he  had  secured  as  a  hiding- 
place  for  priests.  He  stayed  in  London  a  few  months  and 
then  repaired  to  the  country  districts,  where,  it  seems,  he 
was  henceforth  known  as  Godfrey  Maurice. ^^  Hampered  by 
the  usual  difficulties  and  hardships,  he  labored  here  "about 
three  years, ' '  as  Fr.  Garnet  writes,  ' '  in  tilling  the  vineyard 
of  Christ  with  no  small  profit. ' '    Then  of  a  sudden  his  ac- 

12.  That  he  was  at  first  a  Conventual  and  shortly  after  Joined  the 
Franciscans,  we  learn  from  Parkinson,  p.  259.     See  also  Stone,  p.  108. 

13.  Garnet  calls  him  Godofredus  Mauricius.  The  missionaries  at  the 
time  were  compelled  to  go  under  assumed  names.  Hence  it  Is  often  very 
difficult  at  the  present  day  to  determine  their  real  name. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  207 

tivity  was  cut  short.  He  was  captured  and  thrown  into 
prison,  where,  we  learn  from  Fr,  Garnet's  letter,  he  re- 
mained "about  two  years,  during  the  latter  part  of  which 
time  he  was  treated  with  less  rigor  and  had  a  certain  amount 
of  liberty.  The  quantity  of  good  he  did  was  incredible, 
through  the  great  concourse  of  Catholics  that  came  to 
him.""  The  zeal  and  sanctity  of  this  worthy  son  of  St. 
Francis  had  by  this  time  attracted  the  attention  of  his 
brethren.  They  chose  him  minister  provincial  of  the  Eng- 
lish Franciscans  and  entrusted  to  him  the  official  seal  of 
the  province.  Shortly  before  his  martyrdom,  Fr.  Godfrey 
delivered  this  seal  into  the  hands  of  Fr.  William  Stanney, 
thereby  appointing  him  to  succeed  in  the  office. 

The  liberties  which  the  imprisoned  friar  enjoyed  and 
the  zeal  with  which  he  discharged  his  priestly  duties,  at  last 
roused  the  envy  and  indignation  of  Topcliffe.  Determined 
to  trump  up  some  charge  that  would  bring  him  to  the  scaf- 
fold, the  notorious  priest-catcher  began  to  make  inquiries 
regarding  his  previous  history.  His  efforts  were  not  in  vain. 
In  the  spring  of  1598,  one  of  his  spies  reported  that  Fr. 
Godfrey  before  his  arrest  had  been  hiding  for  two  days  in 
the  house  of  Mrs.  Jane  Wiseman,  had  said  Mass  there,  and 
had  received  alms  from  her  and  from  ]\Ir.  Robert  Barnes.^" 
The  accusation  was  serious,  and  Topcliffe  hastened  to  profit 
by  it.  Accordingly,  Fr.  Godfrey  was  indicted  and  sum- 
moned to  appear,  on  July  13,  before  the  King's  Bench  in 
Westminster.  When  challenged  with  going  abroad  to  be 
ordained  priest  by  authority  of  Rome  and  then  returning  to 
England  in  defiance  of  the  laws,  the  man  of  God  fearlessly 
confessed : 

' '  H  this  be  a  crime  I  must  own  myself  guilty ;  for  I  am 
a  priest,  and  I  came  over  to  England  to  gain  as  many 
souls  as  I  could  to  Christ.     But  I  deny  that  I  have  ever 

14.  According  to  Mason,  p.  17,  he  was  apprehended  soon  after. his 
landing  in  England  and  cast  into  prison,  where  he  remained  some  years. 
See  also  Annales  Minorum,  Vol.  XIX,  p.  294  ;  Parkinson,  p.  260. 

15.  Both,  Mr.  Barnes  and  Mrs.  Wiseman,  were  tried  and  condemned  to 
death.     Their  sentence  was  commuted  to  imprisonment. 


208  FRANCISCANS  AND 

intermeddled  directly  or  indirectly  in  any  manner  of 
treason. ' ' 

*  *  You  are  not  charged  with  any  matter  of  treason, ' '  the 
lord  chief  justice  explained,  "neither  is  there  any  matter  of 
treason  to  be  objected  against  you,  except  that  you  are  a 
priest  and  have  come  into  England;  nor  is  there  anything 
further  needed.  For  by  your  own  confession  you  are  within 
the  compass  of  the  law. ' ' 

Disgust  and  dissatisfaction  with  Elizabeth's  bloody 
measures  against  Catholics  had  of  late  become  noticeable 
among  the  lower  classes.  The  judges  were  therefore  evi- 
dently anxious  to  shake  off  the  responsibility  of  another 
public  execution ;  hence  they  urged  the  prisoner  to  demand 
a  trial  by  jury. 

' '  I  will  not  have  my  blood  required  of  men  ignorant  in 
the  law,"  objected  the  disinterested  and  zealous  priest;  "I 
place  myself  and  my  cause  before  God  and  the  Bench.  You 
have  made  the  laws,  and  therefore  you  must  know  best  what 
is  the  meaning  of  them." 

Upon  this  the  judges  were  constrained  to  pass  sentence 
and  condemned  Fr.  Godfrey  to  be  hanged,  drawn,  and 
quartered.  But,  to  prevent  all  unnecessary  commotion 
among  the  people,  it  was  decided  that  the  execution  should 
take  place  at  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning.  When  the  sen- 
tence of  death  was  read,  the  venerable  priest  knelt  down 
and  returned  thanks  to  God  for  the  singular  privilege  of 
dying  in  defence  of  his  faith  and  sacred  profession. 

On  the  morning  of  July  22,  1598,  the  executioners  took 
the  gentle  friar  from  his  dungeon,  fastened  him  to  a  hurdle, 
and  dragged  him  through  the  streets  of  London.  Arriving 
at  St.  Thomas'  Waterings,  where  everything  was  in  readi- 
ness for  the  grewsome  tragedy,  they  released  him  from  his 
painful  position  and  led  him  to  the  gallows.  After  saying 
a  short  prayer,  the  man  of  God  rose  to  his  feet,  and  fear- 
lessly facing  his  enemies,  he  solemnly  called  Heaven  to  wit- 
ness that  neither  from  Mr.  Barnes  nor  from  Mrs.  Wiseman 
had  he  ever  received  one  penny  in  silver. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  209 

"But  gold  they  did  give  you,"  snapped  Topcliffe. 

* '  Nor  yet  gold, ' '  was  the  speedy  but  calm  reply.  Anx- 
ious, lest  his  friends  be  made  to  suffer  unjustly  on  his 
account,  he  further  declared  that  he  had  not  said  Mass  in 
their  presence. 

"No,"  fell  in  Topcliffe  sarcastically,  "for  they  were 
public  prayers,  there  being  no  superaltar. 

"There  are  no  such  things,  Master  Topcliffe,"  boldly 
retorted  the  friar;  "neither  did  I  say  any  public  prayers 
at  all  in  their  hearing. ' ' 

At  a  loss  for  a  suitable  answer,  the  queen's  servile  crea- 
ture accused  his  victim  of  having  said  private  prayers. 
This  was  a  charge  that  involved  the  martyr  alone,  and  with- 
out reserve  he  gave  vent  to  his  feelings. 

"I  confess,"  he  avowed  earnestly,  "with  thanks  to 
Almighty  God  for  that  grace,  that  I  said  such  short  and 
secret  prayers  as  I  have  ever  used  since  I  was  newly  risen. 
And  so  I  will  do  as  long  as  I  live,  do  you,  Mr.  Topcliffe, 
what  you  will." 

Then  he  fell  on  his  knees  and  prayed,  while  Topcliffe 
turning  to  the  spectators,  read  a  paper,  the  contents  of 
which,  he  trusted,  would  establish  the  friar's  disloyalty  to 
the  queen,  and  thus  create  public  sentiment  against  him. 
We  shall  see  how  poorly  he  succeeded. 

Having  prayed  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  Fr.  Godfrey 
arose  and  with  Topcliffe 's  assistance  climbed  into  the  cart 
that  was  standing  under  the  gallows.  Then  first  was  it 
noticed  that  the  hangman  had  forgotten  to  bring  a  rope 
and  immediately  a  horseman  was  sent  into  the  city  to  fetch 

one. 

In  the  meantime,  the  martyr  turning  toward  the  people 
again  proclaimed  his  allegiance  to  the  queen  and  the  realm. 
He  further  averred  that,  according  to  the  declaration  of 
the  lord  chief  justice,  he  had  come  here  to  die  not  because 
he  was  a  traitor,  but  because  he  was  a  priest  and  a  Fran- 
ciscan,     This    statement    the    under-marshal    confirmed. 


210  FRANCISCANS  AND 

whereupon  one  of  the  spectators  protested  that  an  innocent 
man  was  about  to  be  executed. 

' '  Patience  awhile,  sir, ' '  broke  in  Topcliffe  quite  alarmed 
at  the  menacing  attitude  of  the  people;  "you  shall  soon  see 
what  manner  of  innocent  he  is.  Tell  me, ' '  he  cried,  turning 
to  the  friar,  "if  the  Pope  excommunicated  the  queen,  or 
tried  to  turn  her  out  of  her  kingdom  in  order  to  encourage 
Papistry,  what  would  you  do,  or  what  would  you  advise 
others  to  do?" 

When  Fr.  Godfrey,  ignoring  this  question,  once  more 
asserted  that  he  prayed  every  day  for  the  spiritual  and 
temporal  welfare  of  the  queen,  Topcliffe  interposed  saying 
that  he  as  well  as  all  other  priests  and  Catholics  were  dis- 
loyal subjects  of  her  majesty  and  would  kill  her  if  they 
could. 

This  base  insinuation  wounded  the  martyr's  sense  of 
truth  and  justice. 

"I  am  certain,"  he  challenged  his  lying  accuser,  "that 
I  myself,  and  all  other  priests  and  Catholics,  are  ready  to 
suffer  much  more  for  the  good  of  the  queen  than  you  are. 
Master  Topcliffe,  though  your  cruelty  alone  has  been  suf- 
ficient to  make  her  odious  to  all  the  priests  in  Christendom." 
An  hour  had  now  elapsed,  when  suddenly,  "A  reprieve! 
a  reprieve ! ' '  resounded  on  every  side.  Soon  the  horseman 
drew  up  to  the  place  of  execution.  "Ay,  ay,  here  it  is!" 
he  exclaimed,  showing  a  rope  to  the  excited  multitude. 

Without  delay,  Topcliffe  issued  orders.  The  rope  was 
fastened  to  the  gallows,  while  one  of  the  hangmen  leaped  into 
the  cart  and  placed  the  noose  about  the  friar's  neck.  Seiz- 
ing the  reins,  he  was  about  to  whip  off  the  horses,  when  of  a 
sudden  three  stalwart  fellows  rushed  forward,  held  back 
the  terrified  animals,  and  boldly  demanded  that  the  man  of 
God  be  permitted  to  finish  speaking.  Topcliffe  trembled 
with  rage ;  but  he  dared  not  ignore  the  demand  of  the  riot- 
ous multitude.  Meanwhile,  all  eyes  rested  on  the  unoffend- 
ing friar  who  was  gazing  heavenward  and  praying  aloud, 
' '  Sweet  Jesus,  have  mercy  on  my  soul. ' '    With  a  sneer,  the 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  211 

under-marshal  remarked  that  he  had  forgotten  the  Blessed 
Virgin;  whereupon,  the  servant  of  God  added,  ''Blessed 
queen  of  heaven,  be  my  advocate  and  pray  for  me  now  and 
ever. ' ' 

After  a  moment  of  quiet  prayer,  the  martyr  again  ex- 
claimed, "Sweet  Jesus,  have  mercy  on  my  soul."  Then  he 
gave  a  priest  in  the  crowd  the  usual  sign  and  received  the 
last  absolution,^''  whereupon  he  turned  to  the  people  and 
asked  them  to  say  one  Credo  and  to  pray  for  him.  Im- 
patient over  the  long  delay,  Topcliffe  began  to  rebuke  and 
ridicule  the  martyr,  who  in  reply  calmly  begged  not  to  be 
disturbed  in  his  last  prayers,  since  he  had  come  to  die  for 
the  faith.  Once  more  he  commended  his  soul  to  God,  when 
with  a  sudden  jolt  the  cart  was  drawn  from  under  him  and 
the  form  of  the  holy  man  w^as  seen  dangling  from  the 
gallows. 

Alarmed  at  the  disaffection  that  the  sight  of  the  martyr 
awakened  in  the  multitude  surroimding  the  gallows,  Top- 
cliffe allowed  him  to  hang  until  life  was  extinct.  Then  the 
corpse  was  taken  down  and  subjected  to  the  usual  barbari- 
ties. The  head  was  exposed  on  a  pole  in  Southwark;  but 
the  cheerful  and  smiling  countenance  it  wore  attracted  such 
wide  attention  that  after  two  days  officials  came  and  re- 
moved the  head,  having  first  disfigured  the  face  most  shame- 
fully. The  quarters  were  hung  on  four  trees  that  skirted 
the  roads  leading  to  Newington  and  Lambeth.  Two  prom- 
inent young  gentlemen,  Challoner  relates,  were  thrown  into 
prison  for  attempting  to  remove  them.  According  to  the 
same  historian,  one  of  the  martyr's  arms  was  preserved  for 
many  years  at  Pontoise.  ' '  Such, ' '  writes  Fr.  Garnet,  ' '  was 
the  most  happy  end  of  this  saint.  May  God  make  us  all 
partakers  of  his  merits."  In  his  Franciscan  Martyrology, 
Fr.  Arturus  a  Monasterio,  on  July  22,  commemorates  Fr. 
Godfrey  as  a  martyr  of  the  Order.  The  cause  of  his  beati- 
fication was  introduced  on  December  4,  1886,  his  name  ap- 

16.  Very  likely,  Father  Garnet  was  present  at  the  execution.  Three 
days  later,  we  know,  he  penned  his  valuable  letter.  See  Hope,  p.  93,  foot- 
note, on  the  authority  of  Challoner. 


212  FRANCISCANS  AND 

pearing  on  the  list  of  English  martyrs,  drawn  up  under 
that  date  and  presented  to  the  Sacred  Congregation.^^ 

Venerable  Godfrey  Buckley  closes  the  long  line  of  Fran- 
ciscans who  suffered  and  died  for  the  faith  in  England, 
since  the  year  1534.  The  fact  that  he  and  Fr.  John  Stor- 
rens  are  the  only  Franciscans  known  to  have  undergone 
public  martyrdom  for  the  faith  during  the  reign  of  Queen 
Elizabeth,  shows  clearly  the  deplorable  state  of  the  province 
at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century.  With  a  heavy  heart, 
no  doubt,  Fr.  William  Stanney  took  over  the  official  seal, 
little  thinking  that  at  that  very  moment  God  was  fashioning 
the  heart  and  mind  of  a  young  convert  in  the  English  Col- 
lege at  Douai,  who  was  destined  one  day  to  breathe  new  life 
and  vigor  into  the  declining  province. 

17.  See  Acta  Minorum,  Vol.  VI  (1887),  pp.  49  sea- 


PART  SECOND 

UNDER  THE  STUARTS 

1603-1649 


Franciscans  in  England  in  Their  Defense  of  Holy  Mother  Church 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  SECOND   ENGLISH   PROVINCE 

Its  founder:  Fr.  John  Gennings — His  remarkable  conversion 
from  Protestantism — Priest  and  missionary  in  England 
— He  enters  the  Franciscan  Order — First  steps  toward 
the  restoration  of  the  English  Province — Action  of  the 
general  chapter  in  its  behalf — A  friary  at  Douai  in 
Flanders — The  province  canonically  established — Fr. 
John  Gennings,  the  first  provincial — Franciscan  mis- 
sions in  England — Extent  of  the  province  before  1649 — 
Character  of  the  friars — Their  activity  against  Protes- 
tantism. 

The  banishment  of  the  Franciscans  on  June  12,  1559, 
and  the  subsequent  seizure  of  their  friaries  was  a  blow  from 
which  the  province  never  recovered.  Although,  as  we  have 
seen,  a  number  of  friars  defied  Queen  Elizabeth  and  re- 
mained in  England,  the  adverse  conditions  under  which  they 
labored,  the  long  reign  of  Elizabeth,  and  the  relentless 
severity  of  her  measures  against  the  Catholic  Church  and 
its  institutions,  necessarily  effected  the  gradual  extinction 
of  the  province.  It  is  touching  to  read  how  for  almost  half 
a  century  these  persecuted  friars,  surrounded  by  dangers 
and  hardships  of  every  description,  sought  to  uphold  at 
least  the  essentials  of  their  holy  Rule.  The  official  seal  of 
the  province  was  handed  on  from  one  martyr  or  confessor 
to  another,  who  thus  maintained  to  some  extent  the  regular 
succession  of  superiors  and  the  obedience  of  the  few  scat- 
tered friars.^  Not  less  indicative  of  their  zeal  is  the  fact 
that,  even  at  this  time  when  to  be  a  friar  and  a  priest  meant 
exile  or  imprisonment,  English  youths  applied  for  admis- 

1.  Mason,  Crrtamen  Seraphicum,  p.  19. 

215 


216  FRANCISCANS  AND 

sion  into  the  Order,  and  after  completing  their  novitiate  and 
studies  joined  the  brethren  in  the  missions.-  Such  recruits, 
however,  were  few  and  far-between,  while  the  older  friars 
who  had  survived  the  first  storm  of  persecution  passed  one 
by  one  to  a  better  life.  Hence,  as  years  wore  on  without 
any  abatement  in  the  Government's  hostile  attitude,  the 
number  of  friars  grew  smaller  and  smaller.  In  his  Annales 
Minorum  under  the  year  1587,  Wadding  commemorates  the 
English  province  as  having  perished  "by  the  fury  of  the 
heretics."^  Finally,  in  the  statistics  of  the  Order  drawn 
up  at  the  general  chapter,  in  1623,  the  name  of  the  English 
Province  is  marked  wdth  a  cross  to  indicate  that  canonically 
speaking  it  no  longer  existed,* 

During  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  there  lived  in 
Litchfield  Staffordshire,  a  Protestant  family  by  the  name  of 
Gennings.^  They  had  two  sons,  Edmund  and  John,  The 
elder  of  these,  Edmund,  at  an  early  age,  chanced  to  come 
under  Catholic  influence,  which  soon  resulted  in  his  return 
to  the  old  faith.  Not  long  after  his  conversion,  he  left  Eng- 
land and  came  to  Douai,  where  he  studied  for  some  years 
at  the  English  College.®  On  March  18,  1590,  at  Soissons, 
he  was  ordained  priest.  Although  physically  unfit  for  the 
arduous  life  of  a  missionary,  he  was  anxious  to  labor  among 
his  countrymen,  and  immediately  after  his  ordination  he 
received  permission  to  set  out  for  England. 

At  the  time  of  Edmund's  conversion,  his  brother  John 
was  a  mere  child.  Reared  and  educated  in  Protestantism, 
nothing  was  farther  from  his  mind  than  to  follow  in  the 
footsteps  of  his  brother.  In  fact,  the  news  that  Edmund 
had  become  a  Catholic  and,  what  was  worse,  a  priest  served 
only  to  steel  the  heart  of  John  against  everything  that  might 
influence  his  creed  and  mode  of  life.    After  the  death  of 

2.  Parkinson,  Antiquities   o/  the  English  Franciscans,  p.  261, 

3.  Annales  Minorum,  Vol.  XXII,  an.  1587,  num.  XC. 

4.  Stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  124. 

5.  The  subsequent  narrative  is  based  on  The  Life  and  Death  of  Mr. 
Edmund  Genninos,  Priest,  written  by  tlie  martyr's  brother  John  and  pub- 
lished at  Saint-Omer  in  1614.  The  Life  was  reprinted  in  the  Annals  of 
Our  Lady  of  the  Angels,  Vol.  XIII   (1888),  Nos.  V-VII. 

6.  See  Douai  Diaries,  p.  14.  31. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  217 

his  parents,  he  proceeded  to  London,  where  he  soon  fell  a 
victim  to  the  godless  spirit  of  the  times.  Many  a  time,  no 
doubt,  the  young  man  thought  of  his  brother,  never  for  a 
moment  surmising  what  a  great  change  he  himself  would 
shortly  undergo.  Much  less  did  he  suspect  that  the  man 
whom  one  morning  in  the  summer  of  1590  he  saw  walking 
ahead  of  him  by  St,  Paul's  Church  and  anxiously  looking 
round  to  see  who  followed,  was  none  other  than  his  own 
brother.  A  few  days  later,  while  walking  along  Ludgate 
Hill,  he  encountered  the  same  person.  This  time,  his  curi- 
osity was  roused.  From  the  anxious  look  and  bearing  of 
the  man,  John  concluded  that  something  must  be  weighing 
on  his  mind.  He  was,  therefore,  not  surprised,  when  the 
former  approached  and  courteously  greeted  him. 

"What  countryman  are  you?"  queried  the  stranger. 

"I  am  a  StafPordshireman, "  replied  John. 

* '  And  your  name  ? ' '  civilly  demanded  the  other. 

"My  name  is  John  Gennings,"  the  youth  answered,  be- 
coming interested. 

At  these  words,  the  troubled  look  on  the  countenance  of 
the  stranger  vanished.  He  raised  his  eyes  to  heaven  in  an 
attitude  of  prayer.  Then,  smiling  affectionately  on  the 
young  man  before  him,  he  said  calmly : 

' '  I  am  your  kinsman ;  my  name  is  Ironmonger  and  I  am 
very  glad  to  see  you  well.  What  has  become  of  your  brother 
Edmund?" 

The  mention  of  this  name  touched  John  to  the  quick. 
That  man,  he  mused,  knows  more  about  Edmund  than  his 
question  implies.     But  he  shrewdly  repressed  his  feelings. 

"I  heard,"  he  answered  with  apparent  coldness,  "that 
my  brother  went  to  Rome  to  the  Pope  and  became  a  notable 
Papist  and  a  traitor  to  both  God  and  his  country.  If  he 
returns,  he  will  infallibly  be  hanged. ' ' 

"I  have  heard,"  sweetly  retorted  the  other,  "that  your 
brother  is  a  very  honest  man  and  loves  both  the  queen  and 
his  country,  but  God  above  all.  But  tell  me,  good  cousin 
John,  do  you  not  know  him  if  you  see  him  ? ' ' 


218  FRANCISCANS  AND 

At  this,  the  young  man  became  alarmed.  What,  he  re- 
flected, if  this  man  were  my  brother. 

"No,"  he  rejoined  with  evident  uneasiness,  "I  can  not 
tell  where  he  is.  I  greatly  fear,  however,  that  I  have  a 
brother  a  Papist  priest,  and  that  you  are  the  man.  If  this 
is  so,  you  will  discredit  me  and  all  my  friends.  In  this  I 
can  never  follow  you,  although  in  other  matters  I  can  respect 
you." 

Wlien  the  good  priest  heard  this  spirited  profession  oi 
heresy  from  the  lips  of  his  erring  brother,  he  could  restrain 
his  feelings  no  longer. 

"Indeed,"  he  confessed,  deeply  touched,  "I  am  your 
brother ;  for  your  love  have  I  taken  great  pains  to  seek  you. 
I  beg  of  you  to  keep  secret  the  knowledge  of  my  arrival." 

"Not  for  a  world,"  John  assured  him,  "will  I  disclose 
your  return.  But, ' '  he  hastily  added,  * '  I  desire  you  to  come 
no  more  unto  me,  for  I  fear  greatly  the  danger  of  the  law 
and  the  penalty  of  the  new-made  statute  in  concealing  you." 

The  two  brothers  had  by  this  time  entered  a  tavern, 
where,  of  course,  it  was  impossible  for  Edmund  to  discuss 
that  which  above  all  had  induced  him  to  search  for  his 
brother.  But,  to  his  deep  regret,  he  soon  learned  that  John 
was  a  staunch  and  thoroughgoing  Protestant,  whom  for  the 
present  there  was  little  chance  of  bringing  back  to  the  fold 
of  Christ.  He  told  him,  therefore,  of  his  intended  departure 
out  of  town,  at  the  same  time  assuring  him  that  within  a 
month  he  would  return  and  confer  with  him  at  length  on 
some  very  important  affair.  How  earnestly  would  Edmund 
then  and  there  have  sought  to  win  his  brother  for  Christ,  if 
on  parting  he  had  foreseen  that  he  would  never  see  him 
again  in  this  life. 

"And  thus,"  wrote  John  in  later  years,  "the  two 
brothers  parted,  the  one  to  his  function  of  converting  souls, 
the  other  to  meditate  how  to  corrupt  his  own ;  the  one  to 
spend  his  time  in  studying  how  to  persuade,  the  other  how 
to  withstand;  the  one  purposed  to  make  haste  back  again, 
hoping  to  save  a  soul,  brotherly  love  thereunto  provoking; 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  219 

the  other  wishing  his  brother  never  to  return,  through  fear 
of  being  converted,  licentious  liberty  perverting  in  him 
brotherly  love." 

Eager  for  service  in  the  vineyard  of  the  Lord,  Edmund 
left  London  and  went  to  the  country  districts.  Many  a  time 
during  the  ensuing  year,  his  thoughts  reverted  to  his  un- 
happy brother,  whom  he  knew  to  be  treading  dangerous 
paths.  He  had  promised  to  see  him  again  within  a  month ; 
but  for  some  reason  or  other  he  was  prevented  from  going 
to  London,  much,  we  may  readily  suppose,  to  the  satisfac- 
tion of  John.  Finally,  in  the  fall  of  1591,  he  could  fulfill 
his  promise.  He  came  to  London,  trusting  that  this  time 
he  would  find  his  brother  better  disposed.  But  God  had 
decreed  that  something  more  than  mere  argument  and  per- 
suasion was  to  bring  about  the  conversion  of  John.  On 
November  8,  while  Edmund  was  saying  IMass  in  the  house 
of  Mr.  Swithin  Wells  in  Gray's  Inn  Fields,  Topcliffe  sud- 
denly forced  his  w^ay  in  and  led  the  assembled  Catholics  off 
to  Newgate  prison.  On  December  4,  they  were  brought  to 
trial,  pronounced  guilty  of  high  treason  and  condemned  to 
death.  Six  days  later,  Edmund  together  with  his  host,  Mr. 
Wells,  was  hanged,  drawn,  and  quartered  before  the  very 
house  where  he  had  celebrated  his  last  Mass. 

Hardened  in  heresy  and  sin,  John  Gennings  was  deter- 
mined that  Edmund's  martyrdom  for  the  faith,  the  news  of 
which  he  received  with  cold  indifference,  should  not  in  any 
way  influence  his  own  conduct.  He  was  a  Protestant  and 
a  Protestant  he  would  remain.  Wonderful,  however,  and 
irresistible  are  the  eternal  decrees  of  the  Most  High.  How 
in  the  end  the  grace  of  God  triumphed  over  the  obstinacy 
of  this  young  man,  we  shall  let  him  relate  in  his  own  words. 
' '  This  much  loved  brother, ' '  he  wrote,  referring  to  him- 
self in  the  third  person,  "this  John  Gennings,  being  in  Lon- 
don at  the  verj^  time  of  his  (Edmund's)  execution,  hearing 
of  the  same,  rather  rejoiced  than  any  way  bewailed  the  un- 
timely and  bloody  end  of  his  nearest  kinsman,  hoping 
thereby  to  be  rid  of  all  persuasions  which  he  suspected  he 


220  FRANCISCANS  AND 

should  receive  from  him  touching  the  Catholic  Religion. 
But  about  ten  days  after  his  execution,  toward  night,  having 
spent  all  that  day  in  sport  and  jollity,  being  weary  with 
play,  he  returned  home,  where  to  repose  himself  he  went 
into  a  secret  chamber.  He  was  no  sooner  there  set  down, 
but  forthwith  his  heart  began  to  be  heavy  and  his  head 
melancholy,  and  he  began  to  weigh  how  idly  he  had  spent 
that  day.  Amidst  these  thoughts,  there  was  presently  repre- 
sented to  his  mind  a  strange  imagination  and  apprehension 
of  the  death  of  his  brother ;  and  amongst  other  things,  how 
he  had,  not  long  before,  forsaken  all  earthly  pleasures,  and, 
for  his  religion  only,  endured  intolerable  torments.  Then 
within  himself  he  made  long  discourses  concerning  his  re- 
ligion and  his  brother's,  comparing  the  Catholic  manner  of 
living  with  his  and  finding  the  one  to  embrace  pain  and 
mortification,  and  the  other  to  seek  pleasure ;  the  one  to  live 
strictly,  and  the  other  licentiously ;  the  one  to  fear  sin,  and 
the  other  to  run  into  all  kinds  of  sin ;  he  was  struck  with 
exceeding  terror  and  remorse.  He  wept  bitterly,  desiring 
God,  after  his  fashion,  to  illuminate  his  understanding,  that 
he  might  see  and  perceive  the  truth. 

' '  Oh,  what  great  joy  and  consolation  did  he  feel  at  that 
instant!  What  reverence  on  the  sudden  did  he  begin  to 
bear  to  the  Blessed  Virgin,  and  to  the  Saints  of  God,  which 
before  he  had  never  scarcely  so  much  as  heard  of!  What 
strange  emotions,  as  it  were  inspirations,  with  exceeding 
readiness  of  will  to  change  his  religion,  took  possession  of  his 
soul!  And  what  heavenly  conception  had  he  now  of  his 
brother's  felicity!  He  imagined  he  saw  him;  he  thought 
he  heard  him.  In  this  ecstasy  of  mind,  he  made  a  vow  upon 
the  spot,  as  he  lay  prostrate  on  the  ground,  to  forsake 
kindred  and  country,  to  find  out  the  true  knowledge  of  his 
brother's  faith;  which  vow  he  soon  after  performed,  and 
departed  from  England  without  giving  notice  to  any  of  his 
friends,  and  went  beyond  the  seas  to  execute  his  promise." 

The  conversion  of  John  Gennings  to  the  faith  of  his 
forefathers  was  as  sincere  as  it  was  miraculous.    The  image 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  221 

of  his  sainted  brother,  whose  cruel  martyrdom  had  at  first 
left  him  so  strangely  indifferent,  was  now  constantly  before 
his  mind.  What  only  a  few  years  since  he  had  so  greatly 
abhorred,  Edmund's  priestly  profession,  this  same  he  now 
had  a  mind  to  embrace.  He  entered  the  English  College  at 
Douai,  where  he  spent  several  years  enriching  his  soul  with 
that  learning  and  virtue  which  so  eminently  qualified  him 
for  his  later  career.  Finally,  in  1607,  he  was  ordained 
pi^iest  '  and  the  next  year  was  permitted  to  depart  for  the 
missions  in  England.  It  was  apparently  about  two  years 
after  his  arrival  that  he  met  Fr.  William  Stanney,  Com- 
missary of  the  English  Franciscans.  Very  likely,  he  told 
the  saintly  friar  the  wonderful  story  of  his  conversion,  and 
made  known  to  him  how  ever  since,  he  felt  himself  drawn 
to  the  religious  life  and  to  the  Order  of  St.  Francis.  Fr. 
William  soon  detected  the  excellent  qualities  of  the  zealous 
priest  and  his  sincere  and  deep  devotion  to  the  Order  he 
wished  to  join.  It  was  probably  in  1610  that  he  vested  him 
with  the  habit  of  St.  Francis  and  sent  him  abroad  to  the 
friary  at  Tpres,  there  to  be  trained  in  the  Franciscan  mode 
of  life  and  to  study  the  Rule  and  the  Statutes  of  the  Order.^ 
Fr.  John  Gennings,  as  he  was  henceforth  known,  proved 
a  true  and  worthy  follower  of  St.  Francis.  The  love  he  bore 
the  Order  to  which  he  now  belonged  engendered  in  his  heart 
a  lively  interest  for  everything  that  pertained  to  its  glory 
and  welfare.  Hearing  how  the  Franciscans,  ever  since  the 
first  outbreak  of  the  religious  persecution  in  his  native  land, 
had  suffered  and  died  for  the  faith,  and  how  in  consequence 
their  province  was  well-nigh  extinct,  Fr.  John  conceived  an 
ardent  longing  to  restore  the  province  to  its  one-time  pres- 
tige and  prosperity.  A  voice  within  seemed  to  tell  him  that 
Divine  Providence  had  decreed  its  restoration  and  had 
chosen  him  as  the  instrument  to  accomplish  it.     This  re- 

7.  See  Douai  Diar-ies,  p.  14,  34. 

8.  "It  does  not  appear  quite  certain,"  Thaddeus  observes,  "In  what 
year  Father  Gennings  joined  the  Franciscan  Order.  The  dates  given  in 
his  mortuary  bill  and  his  epitaph  do  not  agree."  (The  Franciscans  in 
England,  p.  27,  footnote.) 


:22 


FRANCISCANS  AND 


^^^ 


i"-?^<.-> 


Father  John  Geuiiings 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  223 

markable  desire  was  not  merely  a  transient  notion  that 
would  fade  and  die  with  the  first  religious  fervor.  Evi- 
dently, it  was  the  working  of  divine  grace,  growing  stronger 
and  more  urgent  as  years  went  on.  Such,  at  least,  must 
have  been  the  conviction  of  Fr.  William.  As  commissary, 
he  knew  only  too  well  into  what  a  state  of  collapse  the  prov- 
ince had  by  this  time  fallen.  Hence  he  was  interested  in 
his  confrere's  ceaseless  reference  to  its  possible  restoration. 
Convinced  of  his  ability  as  he  was  of  his  zeal  and  virtue, 
Fr.  William  delivered  into  his  hands  the  ancient  seal  of  the 
province,"  thereby  officially  empowering  him  to  work  for  its 
return  to  the  place  of  distinction  it  once  had  enjoyed  in  the 
Order. 

Not  long  after,  Fr.  Gennings  learned  that  several  priests 
and  students  of  the  English  College  at  Douai  wished  to  be- 
come Franciscans  and  join  the  province  he  intended  to  re- 
store. Without  delay  he  proposed  the  matter  to  Fr.  Andrew 
a  Soto,  commissary  general  of  the  Belgian  Provinces.  The 
commissary  favored  the  project  and  granted  him  all  neces- 
sary faculties.  Accordingly,  in  1616,  a  residence  was  pro- 
cured at  Gravelines,  and  the  first  community  assembled  con- 
sisting of  six  Fathers  and  three  novices.  At  the  same  time, 
probably  for  lack  of  sufficient  accommodations,  other  novices 
destined  for  the  English  Province  spent  the  year  of  proba- 
tion in  the  friary  at  Ypres. 

On  June  8,  1618,  the  Franciscans  held  their  general 
chapter  at  Salamanca,  in  Spain.  It  was  here  that  the  work 
of  Fr.  John  Gennings,  till  then  sanctioned  only  by  the  com- 
missary general,  received  the  approbation  of  the  highest 
authorities  of  the  Order.  Among  other  things  it  was  de- 
creed that,  as  Fr.  John  Gennings  had  proposed,  a  friary 
should  be  erected  at  Douai.  The  king  of  Spain  offered  no 
opposition,  but  preferred  to  leave  the  final  decision  to  her 
highness,  the  archduchess  Isabella,  who  was  then  govern- 
ing the  Spanish  Netherlands,  and  to  the  civil  authorities  of 
the  university  town.     The  archduchess,  owing  to  the  inter- 

9.  Mason,  p.  19  ;  Thaddeus,  p.  27. 


224  FRANCISCANS  AND 

vention  of  her  confessor,  Fr,  Andrew  a  Soto,  readily  gave 
her  consent,  while  the  magistrates  of  the  city  even  granted 
a  site  on  which  to  erect  the  friary  and  college.^" 

On  October  30,  of  the  same  year,  the  friars  came  to 
Douai  and  rented  a  private  house,  which  for  the  present 
was  to  serve  as  convent.  The  next  step  of  Fr.  John  Gen- 
nings  was  to  solicit  alms.  Most  generously  did  the  nobility 
in  England  and  the  Benedictine  abbots  of  St.  Vedast  and 
Marchienne  respond  to  his  appeal.  The  work  on  the  build- 
ings, therefore,  progressed  quite  rapidly,  and  in  1621,  the 
friars  could  enter  their  new  home,  which  they  dedicated  to 
St.  Bonaventure.  To  the  first  community  belonged  FF. 
John  Gennings,  Antony  Clarke  (Clercke),  Francis  Daven- 
port, and  Bonaventure  Jackson,  whom  the  commissary  gen- 
eral appointed  first  superior.  In  1624,  the  friary  was  made 
a  guardianate  wdth  Fr.  Bonaventure  as  first  guardian. 

At  the  general  chapter,  in  1618,  the  English  friars  liv- 
ing in  Belgium,  England,  and  Scotland  were  placed  under 
obedience  to  the  commissary  general  of  the  Belgian  Prov- 
inces. Probably  that  same  year,  or  shortly  after,  Fr.  John 
Gennings  became  Vicar  of  England."  It  was  in  this 
capacity  that,  in  1625,  he  sent  Fr.  Francis  Davenport  to 
Eome,  that  he  might  interest  the  general  chapter  in  the  cause 
of  the  English  friars.  The  result  of  this  mission  was  a  letter 
from  the  minister  general,  Fr.  Bernardine  de  Senis,  to  Fr. 
John  Gennings,  by  virtue  of  which  the  English  Franciscans 
were  associated  into  a  custody,  and  the  zealous  vicar  was 
appointed  the  first  custos  enjoying  the  full  power  of  a  pro- 
vincial.^^ Four  years  later,  the  minister  general,  moved  by 
the  entreaties  not  only  of  the  Fathers  but  of  leading  Cath- 
olics, commissioned  Fr.  Joseph  Bergagne,  who  had  mean- 
while become  commissary  general,  to  assemble  the  English 
friars  for  the  first  provincial  chapter.    After  some  delay, 

10.  Mason,  pp.  21  seq. ;  Annales  Minorum,  Vol.  XXV,  an.  1618,  num. 
VIII. 

11.  Fr.  William  Stanney,  Commissary  of  England,  was  still  living  at 
this  time.  It  is  probably  owing  to  this  fact  that  Fr.  John  Gennings  was 
appointed  Vicar  and  not  Commissary  of  England.     See  Thaddeus,  p.  238. 

12.  For  a  copy  of  this  letter  see  Mason,  p.  23 ;  Thaddeus,  p.  37. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  225 

on  the  first  Sunday  of  Advent,  November  14,  1630,  the  meet- 
ing was  held  in  the  convent  of  the  Franciscan  Sisters  at 
Brussels.  First  the  letters  patent  of  the  minister  general 
were  read,^^  giving  the  English  Province  a  regular  existence 
and,  as  is  customary  in  such  cases,  instituting  the  first  pro- 
vincial superiors.  Fr.  John  Gennings  was  declared  Minister 
Provincial,  and  Fr.  Francis  Davenport  Gustos,  while  FF. 
Bonaventure  Jackson,  Nicholas  Day,  Francis  Bel,  and 
Jerome  Pickford  were  appointed  Definitors.  Thereupon, 
the  assembled  Fathers  proceeded  with  the  minor  appoint- 
ments, of  which  a  few  are  of  interest.  Fr.  Francis  Bel  was 
elected  guardian  of  St.  Bonaventure 's  friary  at  Douai  and 
professor  of  the  Hebrew  language.  FF.  Francis  Davenport 
and  William  a  S.  Augustino  were  appointed  professors  of 
theology,  Fr.  Lawrence  a  S.  Edmundo  professor  of  phil- 
osophy and  master  of  novices.  Among  the  regulations  was 
a  decree  providing  ' '  that  for  the  better  and  easier  direction 
of  the  brethren  and  despatch  of  business,  the  Provincial 
when  residing  in  England,  may  appoint  a  commissary,  in- 
vested with  his  authority,  for  our  brethren  in  Belgium ;  and, 
when  residing  in  Belgium,  he  may  in  like  manner  provide 
for  England."^* 

During  the  fifteen  years  that  witnessed  the  realization  of 
Fr.  Genning's  project,  the  missions  in  England  had  not  been 
neglected.  It  was  providential  that  the  restoration  of  the 
province  coincided  with  the  accession  of  Charles  I  (1625- 
1649).  Like  his  predecessor,  the  king  was  well  disposed 
toward  his  Catholic  subjects;  barring  a  few  of  the  penal 
laws  which  the  Puritan  party  compelled  him  to  revive,  the 
first  years  of  his  reign  were  generally  speaking  a  period  of 
religious  peace  and  toleration.  Naturally,  Fr.  John  Gen- 
nings and  his  first  companions  availed  themselves  of  these 
favorable  conditions  and  extended  the  field  of  their  activity. 
From  the  report  of  Panzani,  the  papal  envoy  to  England, 
we  learn  that,  in  1634,  there  were  twenty  Franciscans  on 

13.  For  a  copy  of  these  letters  patent  see  Mason,  p.  34  ;  Thaddeus,  p.  48. 

14.  For  a  copy  of  the  official  regulations  drawn  up  at  this  chapter 
Bee  Thaddeus,  pp.  49  seq. 


226  FRANCISCANS  AND 

the  English  missions.^^  Already  at  the  first  chapter,  in 
1530,  FF.  Bonaventure  Jackson  and  George  Perrot  could  be 
assigned  guardians  of  the  London  and  Reading  districts. 
By  1640,  six  new  districts  had  been  added;  viz.,  Dorset 
(Dorchester)  and  York  in  1632,  Greenwich  in  1634,  Leices- 
ter in  1637,  Oxford  and  Chichester  in  1640.  Seven  years 
later,  these  vast  mission  territories  were  rearranged  into 
eight  guardianates ;  viz.,  London,  York,  Cambridge,  Bristol, 
Oxford,  Newcastle,  Worcester,  and  Greenwich.  Of  these, 
the  first  seven  comprised  thirty-eight  various  shires  or 
counties,  while  Greenwich,  though  situated  in  the  London 
district,  had  a  guardian  of  its  own.  These  districts  were 
governed  by  so-called  titular  guardians,  who  looked  after 
the  friars  and  the  missions  under  their  jurisdiction  and  also 
took  part  in  the  provincial  chapters.  The  minister  pro- 
vincial or,  in  his  absence,  the  commissary  resided  at  London, 
where,  too,  after  1637,  the  provincial  chapters  were  regularly 
held.^« 

Among  the  first  Franciscans  to  be  affiliated  with  the 
province  were  FF.  Nicholas  Day,  Francis  Bel,  and  John 
Baptist  Bullaker;  they  were  summoned  from  the  Province 
of  the  Immaculate  Conception  in  Spain,  where  they  had 
entered  the  Order  and  made  their  profession.  Other  re- 
cruits, like  FF.  Jerome  Piekford,  George  Perrot,  and  Paul 
Heath,  came  from  the  English  College  and  from  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Douai.  Even  on  the  missions  in  England,  Fr. 
Gennings  succeeded  in  gaining  recruits  for  the  ever  increas- 
ing province.  Thus  we  know  that  Fr.  John  Talbot,  a  secular 
priest,  received  the  habit  and  spent  his  year  of  probation  in 
England.  Within  a  few  j^ars,  the  youthful  province  grew 
quite  vigorous.  This  is  evident  from  the  fact,  that  in  1634, 
at  the  provincial  chapter,  the  following  were  approved  for 
preaching  and  hearing  confessions :  FF.  William  Anderton, 
Peter  Cape,  Christopher  Colman,  Augustine  East,  Lewis  of 
Nazareth,  Vincent  of  St.  Blase,  Francis  of  St.  Bonaventure, 

15.  The  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  Vol.  V,  p.  450. 

16.  Thaddeus,  pp.  56  seq. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  227 

Bonaventure  of  St.  Thomas,  Lewis  Wrest.  In  short,  before 
the  ill-fated  year  1649,  the  province  already  nvimbered  fifty- 
three  members,  not  including  the  clerics  who  in  that  year 
were  still  pursuing  their  studies  at  Douai.  By  1649,  how- 
ever, seventeen  members  of  the  province  had  passed  to  their 
eternal  reward.  Among  these  were  the  five  who  suffered 
and  died  for  the  faith  during  the  Puritan  Revolution.^^ 

Like  their  brethren  a  century  before,  the  members  of  the 
second  province  were  faithful  and  zealous  followers  of  St. 
Francis.  At  first  they  styled  themselves  of  the  Regular 
Observance,  but  later  took  the  name  of  Recollects.  "They 
were  induced  to  make  this  change,"  says  Thaddeus,  "chiefly 
by  two  considerations.  One  was  that  probably  all  the  Pro- 
vinces over  which  the  Commissary  General  presided  were 
termed  of  Recollects;  the  other  that  there  was  already  an 
establishment  of  Recollects  at  Douai.  .  .  .  The  people, 
seeing  that  the  English  friars  were  of  the  same  Order,  gave 
them  also  the  same  name.  .  .  .  From  the  year  1676  the 
term  Recollects  is  inserted  in  all  their  documents,  and  they 
also  had  the  inscription  of  the  old  seal,  Regularis  Ohservan- 
tiae,  changed  on  a  new  one  then  made  into  Recollect  or  um-."'^^ 
As  Parkinson  rightly  observes,  "these  Recollects  were  no 
separate  body  distinct  from  the  rest  of  the  Observants,  but 
made  up  a  part  of  it,  giving  themselves  first  to  the  con- 
templative life,  as  the  most  proper  preparation  for  the 
better  discharging  the  duties  of  the  active ;  as  also  for  the 
recovering  their  spirit  when  dissipated  by  preaching,  teach- 
ing, ruling  as  superiors,  or  other  similar  exercises  of  obedi- 
ence and  charity."^''  How  jealously  they  guarded  the 
Franciscan  vow  of  poverty,  we  see  from  the  regulations 
drawn  up  at  the  provincial  chapter  in  1637.  According  to 
these,  no  friar  was  allowed  to  keep  money  about  his  person, 
nor  to  deposit  it  or  to  have  it  deposited  without  a  written 
permission  of  the  provincial.    Furthermore,  it  was  strictly 

17.  The  above  data  have  been  compiled   from   Thaddeus's  list  of  the 
members  of  the  Second  Province,  pp.  190-320. 

18.  Thaddeus,  p.  59. 

19.  Quoted  by  Parkinson,  p.  215. 


228  FRANCISCANS  AND 

forbidden  to  accept  or  to  assign  for  oneself,  for  the  prov- 
ince, or  for  the  friary  at  Douai  any  rents  given  as  alms  either 
temporarily  or  for  life.  Neither  could  money  be  "received 
as  alms  for  things  curious,  precious  or  superfluous,  in  food, 
clothing,  and  the  rest  which  may  be  called  extravagant  con- 
sidering the  condition  of  the  mission,  according  to  the  judg- 
ment of  the  provincial  minister."  "The  faithful  observ- 
ance of  these  regulations,"  Thaddeus  remarks,  "was  un- 
doubtedly a  great  safeguard  for  the  Franciscans  on  the 
English  mission."-"  Like  all  true  sons  of  St.  Francis,  they 
also  fostered  a  deep  and  tender  devotion  to  Mary  the  Mother 
of  God.  To  her  they  recommended  the  eonvei^sion  of  Eng- 
land ;  and  in  1632,  it  was  decreed  that  daily  on  the  missions 
the  litany  in  her  honor  should  be  said  after  the  principal 
Mass  and  the  Tota  pvlchra  after  compline.^^ 

No  less  remarkable  than  the  growth  of  the  youthful  prov- 
ince, was  the  activity  its  early  members  unfolded.  While  a 
number  of  them  labored  in  Belgium,  especially  at  Douai,^^ 
instructing  and  training  the  clerics  for  their  future  mis- 
sionary career  and  ministering  to  the  spiritual  and  corporal 
needs  of  the  people,  others,  after  taking  the  prescribed 
oath,^^  set  out  for  the  English  missions.  The  scenes  of  their 
activity  in  England  were  hallowed  by  the  labors  and  suffer- 
ings of  their  brethren,  who  a  hundred  years  before  had 
resisted  the  fury  of  the  first  storm  against  the  Church.  It 
was,  no  doubt,  the  sacred  memory  of  those  Franciscan  heroes 
that  made  their  heirs  forget  the  hardships  and  privations 
they  encountered  in  the  discharge  of  their  duties.  The 
Catholic  faith  could  not  be  preached  publicly ;  it  was  merely 
tolerated,  and  that  only  because  the  king  secretly  favored 
the  Catholics  and  as  yet  was  powerful  enough  to  oppose  his 

20.  Thaddeus,  p.  61. 

21.  Ibidem,  p.  79. 

22.  The  province  had  a  residence  also  at  Aire  and  at  Bruges.  Thad- 
deus, p.  58. 

23.  By  this  oath,  which  the  friars  had  to  swear  and  sign  before 
departing  for  the  missions  in  England,  they  promised  "that  whenever  they 
should  he  recalled,  or  sent  back  by  tlieir  superiors,  they  would  obey  and 
conform  to  the  command,  circumstances  notwithstanding."  See  Thad- 
deus, p.  58. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  229 

Puritan  parliaments;  while  everyone  knew  that  the  queen 
professed  and  practiced  the  proscribed  religion.  Well 
regulated  parishes  and  schools,  of  course,  there  were  none. 
Accordingly,  the  friars'  sphere  of  activity  lay  principally 
within  the  narrow  confines  of  individual  families.  These 
they  would  visit  from  time  to  time  and- either  minister  to 
their  spiritual  needs  or  endeavor  to  bring  them  back  to  the 
faith  of  their  forefathers.  Already  in  1638,  regulations 
were  made  strictly  obliging  the  friars  frequently  to  cate- 
chize the  children  and  others,  either  in  their  own  homes  or 
at  the  priest's  residence. 

Since  these  families  were  often  widely  scattered  over  the 
country,  it  was  impossible  for  the  friars  to  remain  long  in 
one  place.  Hence  there  was  danger  that  the  fruits  of  their 
visit  would  be  lost  before  their  next  return.  This  naturally 
led  to  a  phase  of  activity  which  speaks  volumes  for  the  zeal 
and  learning  of  these  early  friars.  To  instruct  and 
strengthen  their  scattered  flock  in  the  faith,  they  were  wont 
to  leave  with  the  families  their  writings,  in  which  they  not 
only  expounded  Catholic  doctrine  but  also  defended  it 
against  the  sectaries  who  were  infesting  the  country.  The 
literary  productions  of  the  friars  previous  to  1649  number 
no  less  than  fifty  books  and  pamphlets.  These  were  printed 
in  the  friary  at  Douai  where  as  early  as  1638  a  printing 
press  was  set  up  and  placed  in  charge  of  Fr.  Bonaventure  a 
S.  Thoma.^*  Unquestionably,  the  most  prolific  and  versatile 
writer  of  this  period  was  Fr.  Paul  Heath.  His  works,  thirty 
in  all,  embrace  Scotistic  philosophy  and  theology,  and  many 
treatises  on  ascetieal,  historical,  and  controversial  topics.^^ 
Fr.  Bonaventure  Jackon  wrote  the  Manuduction  to  the 
Palace  of  Truth,,  a  book  of  instruction  for  such  as  had  wan- 
dered from  the  fold  of  Christ.  Worthy  of  special  mention 
is  also  the  famous  Certamen  Seraphicum  {Seraphic  Con- 
flict), written  by  Fr.  Angelus  Mason  and  published  at 
Douai  in  1649.    It  is  in  the  main  a  detailed  account  of  the 

24.  Thaddeus,  pp.  78,  301. 

25.  For  a  list  of  these  works  see  Mason,  p.  vli ;  also  Thaddeus,  pp. 
106  seq. 


230  "         FRANCISCANS  AND 

five  Franciscans  who  were  martyred  for  the  faith  during 
the  last  years  of  Charles  I.  The  fact  that  its  author  was  a 
contemporary  and  a  fellow  friar  of  the  men  whose  life  and 
martyrdom  he  recounts,  makes  this  work  especially  valuable 
to  the  student  of  Franciscan  history.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  two  translations  into  English,  St.  Peter  of  Alcan- 
tara's On  Mental  Prayer,  by  Fr.  Giles  Willoughby,  and  St. 
Bona  venture 's  (?)  Stimulus  amoris  (The  Goad  of  Divine 
Love),  by  Fr.  Augustine  East.  Among  the  \vritings  of  Fr. 
Christopher  Colman  we  find  a  didactic  poem  entitled 
Death's  Duel,^^  a  book  of  verse  on  the  religious  controversies 
of  the  times,  and  the  Life  of  St.  Angela,  a  translation.  That 
the  friars  were  active  in  behalf  of  the  Third  Order  of  St. 
Francis  is  plain  from  the  fact  that  Fr.  Francis  Bel  wrote 
a  treatise  on  its  Rule,  while  Fr.  Angelus  Mason  composed  a 
manual  in  Latin  and  English  for  the  use  of  Tertiaries. 

Needless  to  say,  the  influence  of  these  zealous  and  learned 
friars  roused  the  hatred  of  the  Puritans,  which  in  the  case 
of  one  friar  at  least  broke  out  into  open  hostility.  As  early 
as  1633,  Fr.  Bonaventure  Jackson,  who  three  years  before 
had  been  appointed  guardian  of  the  London  district,  was  a 
prisoner  in  Newgate.  This  we  learn  from  a  letter,  dated 
December  18,  1633,  in  which  the  writer,  a  secular  priest 
laboring  in  the  metropolis,  states  that  Fr.  Bonaventure  was 
among  the  four  prisoners  "within  this  fortnight  . 
released  upon  bond."  Furthermore,  the  Cerfamen 
Seraphicum  says  of  him  that  "having  been  called  to  Eng- 
land by  Father  Gennings,  (he)  labored  with  great  fruit  of 
salvation,  earning  praise  and  gratitude,  and  having  suf- 
fered persecution,  affliction  and  imprisonment,  died  an 
eminent  confessor. ' '-' 

Another  Franciscan  whose  zeal  for  the  true  faith  and 
influence  over  the  ruling  classes  proved  a  constant  menace 
to  Protestantism  was  Fr.  Francis  Davenport.  He  was  un- 
questionably one  of  the  ablest  theologians  and  controver- 

26.  The  poem  Is  reprinted  In  Franciscan  Biographies,  published  by  the 
Catholic  Truth  Society. 

27.  Thaddeus,  p.  75. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  231 

sialists  of  his  time.  Mason  describes  him  as  a  most  pro- 
found and  versatile  Scotist,^^  while  Wood  assures  us  that 
"he  was  excellently  well  versed  in  school  divinity,  in  the 
fathers  and  councils,  in  philosophers,  and  in  ecclesiastical 
and  prof ane  histories ;  .  .  .  all  which  accomplishments 
made  his  company  acceptable  to  great  and  worthy  per- 
sons."^* As  chaplain  to  Queen  Maria  Henrietta,  the  con- 
sort of  Charles  I,  he  was  frequently  at  court,  where  on  ac- 
count of  his  erudition  and  pleasing  manners,  he  commanded 
the  respect  not  only  of  the  queen  and  her  Catholic  house- 
hold but  also  of  the  king  and  of  Laud,  archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury. So  great,  indeed,  was  his  influence  that,  in  1640,  the 
House  of  Commons  sent  a  complaint  to  the  Lords,  deploring 
the  rapid  increase  of  Popery  in  the  realm  and  ascribing  it 
to  the  writings  and  conferences  of  this  formidable  friar. 
The  one  desire  of  his  heart  was  to  effect  a  reunion  of  Eng- 
land with  the  Holy  See.  Accordingly,  in  his  Deits,  Natura, 
Gratia,  a  dogmatical  treatise  on  divine  grace,  he  brought 
by  way  of  appendix  an  explanation  of  the  Thirty-Nine 
Articles.  In  interpreting  these,  however,  he  was  more  zeal- 
ous than  judicious,  making  certain  concessions  to  heresy  and 
schism  which  the  Church  could  not  countenance.  The  book 
was,  therefore,  severely  criticized  by  both  the  Catholic  and 
the  Protestant  party,  and  the  well-meaning  friar  had  to 
undergo  the  humiliation  of  seeing  it  placed  on  the  index 
by  the  Spanish  Inquisition.  It  would  probably  have  met  a 
similar  fate  at  Rome  but  for  the  intervention  of  Panzani, 
the  papal  envoy  in  London.  "Thus,"  to  quote  Stone,  "it 
was  possible  to  go  too  far  even  in  a  good  cause ;  Rome  saw 
what  we  now  see  plainly,  but  what  the  moving  characters  in 
the  drama  could  not  see.  The  nation,  instead  of  being  ripe 
for  conversion,  was  in  reality  drifting  away  from  the 
Church,  and  a  Puritan  reaction  was  about  to  set  in,  almost 
as  disastrous  in  its  consequences  as  Henry  the  Eighth's 
schism,  or  Elizabeth's  apostacy. "^° 

28.  Mason,  p.  81. 

29.  Quoted  by  Dodd,  Church  History  of  England,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  105. 

30.  Stone,  p.  120. 


CHAPTER  II 

VENERABLE  WILLIAM  WARD,  FRANCISCAN  TERTIARY 

Troublous  reign  of  Charles  I — Puritan  animosity  against 
"Papists" — William  Ward,  a  Protestant  at  Oxford — 
Returns  to  the  old  faith — Ordained  priest — Seized  on 
his  return  to  England — Three  years  in  prison — Thirty 
years  of  unceasing  toil  and  hardship — A  true  follower 
of  St.  Francis — In  Newgate  for  being  a  priest — Sen- 
tenced to  death — Martyred  at  Tyhurn. 

After  three  years  of  constant  quarreling  with  the  Com- 
mons, who  demanded  that  the  penal  laws  against  Catholics 
be  enforced,  Charles  I,  in  1628,  prorogued  parliament  and 
for  the  next  twelve  years  ruled  without  it.  During  this 
period,  as  we  have  seen.  Catholics  enjoyed  an  interval  of 
comparative  peace  and  toleration.  The  Puritans,  however, 
embittered  by  the  consequent  increase  of  "popery,"  left 
nothing  undone  to  undermine  the  authority  of  Charles  and 
to  bring  archbishop  Laud  of  Canterbury  to  justice  for  trea- 
sonable leanings  toward  Rome.  To  create  a  spirit  of  fana- 
ticism among  the  lower  classes,  unscrupulous  pamphleteers 
deluged  the  country  with  their  writings,  in  which  they  railed 
at  the  Pope  and  the  Church  and  represented  the  king  as 
a  secret  friend  and  protector  of  the  detested  Catholics.  Had 
Charles  been  a  strong  and  resolute  character,  his  game  of 
double-dealing  would  have  neither  emboldened  the  agitators 
of  Puritanism  nor  undermined  the  throne  on  which  he 
thought  himself  securely  seated.  He  made  principle  sub- 
servient to  policy,  and  this  temporizing  attitude  proved  his 
undoing. 

Matters  came  to  a  head  when,  in  1640,  the  threatening 
attitude  of  the  Scots  compelled  the  king  to  reconvene  parlia- 

232 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  233 

ment.  Now  the  Puritans,  who  controlled  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, had  an  opportunity  to  aim  a  deadly  blow  at  the 
Church.  At  once  they  raised  the  cry  of  "no  popery,"  and 
flatly  refused  to  vote  the  necessary  war  subsidies  unless  the 
king  rigorously  enforced  the  penal  laws  against  the  Cath- 
olics, whom  they  falsely  accused  of  favoring  and  aiding  the 
Scots.  Deserted  by  the  terrified  Lords,  Charles  reluctantly 
consented  and  "gave  orders  that  all  Catholics  should  quit 
the  court,  and  be  expelled  from  the  army;  that  the  houses 
of  recusants  should  be  searched  for  arms;  and  that  the 
priests  should  be  banished  from  the  realm  within  thirty 
days."^  But,  by  thus  giving  way  to  the  fanatic  Commons, 
the  king  signed  his  own  death  warrant.  With  unexampled 
insolence,  they  now  publicly  assailed  their  sovereign  with 
keen  invectives  for  having  favored  and  protected  Catholics, 
contrary  to  existing  laws.  From  religious  fanaticism  the 
popular  mind  went  over  to  political  revolutionism;  to  the 
cry  of  "no  popery"  was  added  the  clamor  for  "no  royalty." 
What  followed  is  well  known.  ' '  A  century  of  revolution, ' ' 
Stone  aptly  remarks,  "begun  with  a  king's  act  of  defiance 
hurled  at  the  highest  spiritual  authority  on  earth,  was  end- 
ing with  a  people 's  renunciation  of  all  kingly  authority. '  '^ 
The  public  execution  of  the  unhappy  monarch,  in  1649,  is 
one  of  the  saddest  and  most  sliocking  events  in  English 
history,  and  shows  how  the  allegiance  of  a  people  to  a  tem- 
poral sovereign  stands  and  falls  with  their  allegiance  to  him 
whom  Christ  vested  with  supreme  authority  in  matters 
spiritual. 

Having  seized  the  reigns  of  government,  the  Puritan 
"army  of  saints,"  under  the  cloak  of  zeal  for  "pure  re- 
ligion" and  civil  liberty,  immediately  began  a  bloody  perse- 
cution of  Catholics  who  deemed  it  their  duty  to  support  the 
king  as  the  embodiment  of  lawful  authority.  During  this 
religious  and  political  upheaval,  five  Franciscans  suffered 
death  for  the  faith.    Before  detailing  their  life  and  martyr- 

1.  Ungard,  History  of  England,  Vol.  VII,  p.  229. 

2.  Stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  211. 


234  FRANCISCANS  AND 

dom,  however,  we  must  acquaint  the  reader  with  one  who, 
though  not  a  member  of  the  province,  still,  as  a  Tertiary  of 
St.  Francis,  deserves  more  than  a  passing  notice  in  the  story 
of  the  English  Franciscans.^  His  saintly  life  and  death 
will  show  how  the  spirit  of  St.  Francis  was  breathing  in 
England  even  at  a  time  when  the  once  glorious  province  had 
fallen  to  ruin. 

F.  William  Ward  *  was  born  of  Protestant  parents  about 
the  year  1560,  at  Thornby  in  Westmoreland.^  Of  his  early 
life  nothing  is  known  beyond  the  fact  that  his  parents,  who 
were  of  the  wealthy  class,  had  him  educated  at  Oxford, 
where  after  completing  his  studies  he  was  for  seven  years 
associated  with  Brasenose  College.  The  renewed  hostility 
of  Queen  Elizabeth  against  the  Church  of  Rome  and  the 
subsequent  sufferings  of  the  Catholics  must  have  made  a 
deep  and  lasting  impression  on  him.  Examining  the  tenets 
of  the  proscribed  religion  and  seeking  the  counsel  of  Cath- 
olic friends,  he  gradually  perceived  on  which  side  truth  and 
justice  lay.  It  is  probable  that  to  avoid  opposition  on  the 
part  of  his  Protestant  family,  who  would  surely  have  re- 
sented his  contemplated  conversion  to  Catholicism,  William 
accompanied  Mr.  Button,  a  Catholic  gentleman,  to  Spain 
and  there  embraced  the  religion  of  his  forefathers.  He  left 
England  a  skeptical  Protestant,  he  returned  a  devout  and 
practical  Catholic.  In  time,  Dodd  informs  us,  he  even  suc- 
ceeded in  bringing  his  mother  to  the  fold  of  Christ.    Indeed, 

3.  That  Venerable  William  Ward  belonged  to  the  Third  Order  of  St. 
Francis  is  sufficiently  attested  by  Mason  in  his  Ccrtamen  Seraphicum. 
On  page  50,  he  makes  mention  "of  the  martyrdom  of  Mr.  Ward,  a  priest 
of  the  venerable  secular  clergy,  whom  I  shall  justly  call  our  confr&re,  as 
the  cord  of  St.  Francis,  with  which  on  the  scaffold  he  was  girded  next  to 
the  skin,  amply  testifies." 

4.  His  real  name,  according  to  The  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  was  Web- 
ster.    Under  this  name  he  is  also  registered  in  the  Douai  Diaries. 

5.  Our  sources  of  information  regarding  his  life  and  martyrdom  are 
the  following :  Dodd,  Church  History  of  England,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  95  ;  his  chief 
sources  were  the  Athenae  Oxonienses  of  Anthony  Wood  and  a  manuscript 
account  of  the  martyr's  life  written  by  a  fellow  priest  of  his  acquaintance. 
— Hope,  Franciscan  Martyrs  in  England,  pp.  117  seq.  ;  the  author  seems  to 
have  drawn  chiefly  from  De  Marsys,  who  was  an  eye-witness  of  the  martyr- 
doms he  relates. — Stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  128,  who  refers  the 
reader  to  Challoner's  Memoirs  of  Missionary  Priests. — Spillmann,  Eathc- 
Ukenverfolgung  in  England.  Part  IV,  p.  23,  who  likewise  drew  from  Chal- 
loner. — The  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  Vol.  XV,  p.  552. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  235 

so  openly  did  he  practice  his  religion  that  he  was  repeatedly 
arrested  and  imprisoned.  This,  however,  only  confirmed 
him  in  the  faith  and  filled  his  heart  with  a  burning  zeal  to 
take  the  step  he  had  long  been  contemplating. 

In  1604,  he  left  for  the  continent ;  and  on  September  16, 
the  authorities  of  the  English  College  at  Douai  admitted 
him  as  a  candidate  of  the  priesthood,  despite  the  fact  that 
he  was  already  over  forty  years  of  age.  On  June  1,  1608, 
he  was  ordained  priest ;  and  a  few  months  later,  on  October 
14,  he  again  set  sail  for  England.*^  The  ship,  however,  was 
driven  to  the  coast  of  Scotland.  English  harbors  at  that 
time  were  infested  with  spies  eager  to  detect  a  priest  among 
the  landing  voyagers.  F.  William  Ward  did  not  escape 
their  vigilance.  He  was  seized  and  without  much  ado  thrown 
into  a  dark  and  loathsome  prison.  Here  he  suffered  for 
three  years,  until  by  some  chance  or  other  he  was  set  free. 
Thereupon,  he  departed  for  his  native  land,  where  he  soon 
engaged  in  ministering  to  the  needs  of  the  scattered 
Catholics. 

The  remaining  thirty  years  of  his  life,  from  1611  to  1641, 
were  spent  chiefly  in  and  about  London,  the  very  hotbed  of 
irreligion  and  persecution.  They  represent  one  long  un- 
broken period  of  indefatigable  zeal  and  devotion,  beset  with 
untold  trials  that  would  have  discouraged  a  less  fervent  and 
self-denying  spirit.  Time  and  again,  the  heroic  priest  was 
arrested,  imprisoned,  and  banished.  His  biographers  tell 
us  that  the  time  he  spent  in  the  various  prisons  aggregated 
no  less  than  twenty  years.  But  nothing  could  quench  the 
fire  that  glowed  in  his  priestly  soul.  He  always  returned  to 
his  beloved  flock  with  renewed  zeal,  anxiously  hoping  that 
the  day  would  come  when  he  would  be  permitted  to  seal  his 
faith  with  his  blood. 

It  was  probably  at  the  time  when  the  English  Fran- 
ciscans undertook  the  restoration  of  their  province,  that  F. 
William  Ward  became  acquainted  with  the  friars  and 
joined  the  Third  Order  of  St.  Francis.    His  private  no  less 

6.  See  Douai  Diaries,  pp.  19,  24,  285. 


236  FRANCISCANS  AND 

than  his  public  life  was  that  of  a  true  and  wholesouled 
Tertiary.  Personal  sanctity  lent  special  weight  to  his 
priestly  exhortations,  so  that  he  was  one  of  the  most  popular 
priests  on  the  mission.  Like  a  true  follower  of  St.  Francis, 
he  loved  and  practiced  holy  poverty  in  a  heroic  degree  and 
chose  the  poorest  and  meanest  districts  of  London  and  its 
vicinity  as  the  field  of  his  activity.  Although  he  possessed 
abundant  riches,  he  was  so  niggardly  with  himself  in  food 
and  clothing  that  his  friends  ascribed  it  to  an  avaricious 
spirit.  How  different  would  have  been  their  verdict  had 
they  known  that  he  was  denying  himself  the  comforts  of 
life  only  to  have  more  to  bestow  on  his  cherished  poor. 
These  he  would  seek  out  in  their  wretched  hovels  and  with 
loving  condescension  minister  to  their  spiritual  and  material 
needs. 

Naturally  of  a  somber,  almost  repulsive  disposition,  F. 
"William  Ward  was  known  to  be  a  very  exacting  confessor 
and  spiritual  director.  Still,  his  impartial  frankness  and 
justice  toward  all  who  came  to  him  won  their  confidence. 
Catholics,  rich  and  poor,  eagerly  sought  his  advice  and  con- 
solation in  those  dark  days  of  political  and  religious  dis- 
sensions. Even  ladies  of  rank  placed  themselves  under  his 
direction,  declaring  that,  despite  the  severity  with  which  he 
censured  sin  and  inculcated  virtue,  they  preferred  him  to 
all  other  confessors. 

Thus  for  thirty  years,  frequently  interrupted  by  im- 
prisonment and  exile,  this  heroic  Tertiary  priest  braved  the 
hardships  of  the  times  in  the  discharge  of  his  sacred  office. 
Meanwhile,  the  endless  agitation  of  the  Puritans  against  the 
king  and  against  the  Catholics  grew  more  and  more  aggres- 
sive, so  that  by  1640  it  became  evident  that  another  bloody 
persecution  would  break  out.  F.  William  Ward  viewed 
these  conditions  with  mingled  feelings  of  sorrow  and  joy. 
He  grieved  at  the  thought  of  the  sufferings  and  hardships 
it  would  again  create  for  the  helpless  Catholics;  but  his 
heart  rejoiced  over  the  prospect  it  gave  him  of  yet  winning 
the  coveted  martyr's  crown.    When,  therefore,  his  nephew. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  237 

who  was  likewise  a  priest  on  the  mission,  requested  him  to 
have  regard  for  his  old  age,  to  quit  London,  and  to  flee  to 
the  country,  where  a  safe  refuge  had  been  prepared  for  him, 
the  intrepid  priest  of  eighty  years  earnestly  replied  that  he 
was  not  like  the  hireling  who  flies  at  the  approach  of  the 
wolf  and  abandons  his  flock  to  its  ravenous  fury;  only  im- 
prisonment and  death  could  separate  him  from  those  whose 
shepherd  he  had  been  these  many  years.  He  was  willing 
to  brave  death  for  the  good  of  his  people. 

In  March,  1641,  parliament  issued  a  warrant  for  the 
arrest  of  all  priests  who  should  be  found  in  England  after 
April  7.  Among  those  who  defied  the  government  and  ra- 
mained  with  their  scattered  flock  was  F.  William  Ward. 
His  frequent  visits  to  the  house  of  Mr.  Wooton,  one  of  his 
nephews,  had  long  roused  the  suspicion  of  a  certain  Mr. 
Thomas  Mayhew  (Mayo),  an  apostate  Catholic  and  a  notori- 
ous priest  catcher.  About  midnight,  on  July  15,  1641,  this 
worthless  creature  without  warning  entered  the  house, 
forced  his  way  into  the  apartments  of  the  aged  priest,  and 
having  literally  dragged  him  out  of  bed,  hurried  him  off  to 
Newgate  prison.  Eight  days  later  he  was  tried  at  the  Old 
Bailey  in  London.  Among  the  witnesses  that  deposed 
against  him  was  Mayhew.  He  had  known  the  prisoner  for 
a  long  time,  he  declared,  and  had  received  the  sacraments 
of  Penance  and  Communion  at  his  hands.  After  hearing 
two  more  witnesses,  who  likewise  declared  they  knew  him 
to  be  a  priest,  the  judge  asked  the  prisoner  whether  these 
accusations  were  true. 

"No  one,"  came  the  fearless  reply,  "is  obliged  to  accuse 
himself.  But  if  you  wish  to  arrive  at  the  truth  and  to  con- 
vict me,  produce  witnesses  without  reproach,  and  not  like 
this  Mayhew,  who  may  well  lie  before  men  since  he  has 
broken  the  faith  which  he  vowed  to  God. ' ' 

In  a  similar  manner,  he  could  have  discomfited  the  other 
witnesses.  But  fear  of  again  foregoing  the  martyr's  crown 
sealed  his  lips.  His  heart  leaped  for  joy,  therefore,  when 
the  jury  after  a  brief  consultation  returned  a  verdict  of 


238  FRANCISCANS  AND 

guilty  and  the  judge  condemned  him  to  be  hanged,  drawn, 
and  quartered  on  the  following  Monday. 

On  Sunday,  the  day  before  his  martyrdom,  he  obtained 
leave  to  converse  with  a  priest  who  was  also  a  prisoner. 
What  passed  between  them  we  can  readily  imagine.  Early 
next  morning,  F.  William  Ward  said  holy  Mass  and  admin- 
istered Holy  Communion  to  a  number  of  imprisoned  Cath- 
olics. His  aged  brow,  otherwise  grave  and  austere,  was  now 
radiant  with  joy,  reflecting  the  peace  and  happiness  that 
reigned  in  his  soul.  When  offered  a  better  coat  than  he  was 
wont  to  wear,  he  said  cheerfully : 

"You  are  right  to  dress  me  better  than  usual,  since  I  am 
going  to  a  more  splendid  banquet  and  a  more  joyful  wedding 
than  any  at  which  I  have  ever  been  present. ' ' 

He  gave  a  twenty-shilling  piece  to  the  jailer,  who  on 
leaving  said  blandly : 

' '  Good  bye,  Mr.  Ward.  I  hope  we  shall  meet  again,  in 
heaven." 

* '  By  no  means, ' '  replied  the  martyr,  ' '  unless  you  change 
your  life  and  become  a  Catholic.  This  is  the  truth,  in  de- 
fense of  which  I  am  about  to  shed  my  blood. ' ' 

About  eight  o'clock,  the  holy  priest  was  led  from  his 
dungeon,  fastened  to  a  hurdle,  and  dragged  to  Tyburn. 
Many  of  the  bystanders  wept  at  sight  of  the  feeble  old  man 
on  his  bed  of  pain. 

"Why  do  you  weep,  my  son?"  he  said  to  a  young  man 
whom  he  recognized  as  one  of  his  penitents. 

* '  For  love  of  you,  my  father, ' '  came  the  touching  reply. 

"If  you  love  me,"  returned  the  martyr  calmly,  "weep 

not  for  my  death.    I  can  yet  live  if  I  will,  but  it  is  my  joy 

to  die  for  this  cause,  and  therefore  you  have  no  reason  to 

weep. ' ' 

Having  arrived  at  the  place  of  execution,  he  was  taken 
from  the  hurdle  and  ordered  to  mount  the  cart  that  stood 
beneath  the  gibbet.  Then  turning  to  the  presiding  officer, 
he  said  in  broken  accents: 

"Mr.  Sheriff,  I  would  have  you  all  here  assembled  un- 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  239 

derstand  that  I  am  condemned  to  death  for  being  a  Romish 
priest,  although  no  proof  of  it  was  adduced  in  court.  Hence 
they  have  dealt  unjustly  with  me.  Now,  however,  I  pro- 
claim of  my  own  free  will  that  for  well-nigh  forty  years  I 
have  been  a  priest,  for  which  I  thank  God.  That  on  this 
account  I  have  been  condemned  to  death,  nils  me  with  joy 
and  I  deem  it  a  great  distinction,  because  I  die  for  my  Lord 
and  Master,  Jesus  Christ." 

When  the  sheriff  offered  him  life  and  liberty  if  he  would 
renounce  his  faith,  the  valiant  champion  beaming  with  joy 
exclaimed : 

"If  God  had  given  me  a  thousand  lives,  I  should  deem 
myself  happy  to  sacrifice  them  all  for  my  priesthood  and 
the  Catholic  Church." 

Upon  this  the  sheriff  objected  that  he  was  to  die  not  for 
being  a  Catholic,  but  for  seducing  the  people. 

"I  have  seduced  no  one,"  replied  the  martyr  with  in- 
dignation, "but  I  have  led  many  in  the  way  of  salvation. 
Would  to  God  that  I  had  converted  more — nay,  even  all 
England !  Believe,  I  entreat  you,  that  it  is  the  love  which 
I  have  for  you  that  makes  me  speak  thus ;  for  if  you  wish 
to  enter  into  Paradise  you  must  embrace  the  Catholic  re- 
ligion, which  was  so  long  revered  by  your  ancestors. ' ' 

When  asked  whether  he  was  related  to  Bishop  Ward  of 
Gloucester,  he  replied  in  the  negative,  adding  that  his  real 
name  was  William  Webster. 

Seeing  now  that  the  executioners  were  making  ready  to 
carry  out  the  sentence,  the  venerable  priest  knelt  down  and 
prayed.  At  last,  the  sheriff  interrupted  him  asking  whether 
there  was  anything  he  wished. 

"Yes,"  he  replied  with  a  look  to  heaven,  "from  all  my 
heart  I  shall  pray  God  to  bless  the  king,  the  queen,  and  the 
whole  royal  family  as  also  the  government,  the  people,  and 
the  entire  kingdom.  Then  I  should  like  to  give  a  little  alms 
to  needy  Catholics,  but  I  see  none  here." 

"Give  it  to  the  executioner,"  cried  the  people,  "that  he 
might  deal  mercifully  with  you." 


240  FRANCISCANS  AND 

* '  What  mercy  can  he  show  me, ' '  retorted  the  martyr  with 
a  smile,  pointing  to  the  gibbet  and  the  fire.  "Nor,"  he  con- 
tinued serenely,  "do  I  even  desire  him  to  lessen  the  merit 
of  my  sufferings. ' ' 

Thereupon,  he  handed  the  sheriff  forty  shillings  to  be 
distributed  among  needy  Catholics.  To  the  executioner  he 
gave  a  half  crown,  while  the  driver  of  the  hurdle  received 
two  shillings.  Then  throwing  his  ring,  breviary,  and  hand- 
kerchief to  the  crowd,  he  permitted  the  rope  to  be  placed 
about  his  neck.  When  the  cart  with  a  sudden  jolt  began 
to  move  from  under  his  feet,  he  raised  his  eyes  to  heaven 
and  exclaimed,  "Jesus,  Jesus,  Jesus,  receive  my  soul!" 
Immediately  he  was  cut  down  and  while  still  living  sub- 
jected to  the  cruel  and  inhuman  butchery.  Seizing  his 
heart  the  executioner  held  it  up  to  the  excited  rabble  and 
cried,  "Behold  the  heart  of  a  traitor!"  But  the  valiant 
martyr  was  beyond  the  reach  of  human  torture  and  insult. 
In  the  mansions  of  the  King  of  kings,  he  was  already  in 
possession  of  that  glorious  crow^n  for  which  he  had  labored 
and  yearned  so  many  years.'^ 

7.  His  name  appears  on  the  list  of  English  martyrs  whose  cause  of 
beatification  was  Introduced  on  December  4,  1886.  See  Acta  Minorum, 
an.  VI  (1«87),  p.  51. 


CHAPTER  III 

FR.  CHRISTOPHEE  COLMAN,  0.  P.  M. 

Of  Catholic  parentage — Student  at  the  Jesuit  College  in 
Douai — Returns  to  England — The  Catholic  gentleman — 
Joins  the  Franciscans  in  Douai — Ordained  priest — Sum- 
moned to  England — Arrested  and  released — Missionary 
labors — The  persecution  revived — Fr.  Christopher  one 
of  the  first  to  he  seized — In  Newgate — Condemned  to 
death — Execution  delayed  and  prevented  by  the  war — 
Sufferings  and  death  in  prison. 

We  have  seen  how,  despite  the  unsettled  times,  the  Eng- 
lish Franciscans  united  once  more  into  a  province  and 
eagerly  cast  in  their  lot  with  the  Jesuits  and  the  secular 
clergy  on  the  missions.  Neither  the  stress  of  present  hard- 
ships nor  the  forebodings  of  another  war  on  the  Church 
could  unman  these  champions  of  the  Cross.  Like  their  fellow 
friars  a  century  before,  they  were  ready  to  suffer  all  for  the 
restoration  of  Christ's  kingdom  in  unhappy  England. 
Their  zeal  for  the  furtherance  and  preservation  of  the  faith 
brought  them  in  touch  with  all  classes  of  society.  Though 
their  forces  were  scant,  yet  it  was  owing  in  no  small  measure 
to  their  ever  widening  activity  and  influence  that  the  anti- 
Catholic  hatred  of  the  Puritans  at  last  burst  forth  into  an 
all-consuming  flame.  Hence,  when  the  news  of  the  martyr- 
dom of  the  well-known  and  much-esteemed  Tertiaiy  priest 
Venerable  William  Ward  reached  the  friars,  they  clearly 
saw  what  was  in  store  for  them  and  by  redoubled  prayers 
and  penances  prepared  themselves  for  the  inevitable  con- 
flict. Their  provincial  at  the  time  was  Fr.  George  Perrot, 
a  man  whom  the  death  records  of  the  province  commemorate 

241 


242 


FRANCISCANS  AND 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  243 

as  *'a  lover  of  the  brethren."^  He,  too,  was  aware  of  the 
calamity  that  would  soon  befall  the  youthful  province ;  and 
we  may  imagine  how,  like  another  John  Forest,  he  sounded 
the  alarm  among  his  devoted  subjects,  exhorting  them  to 
remain  loyal  and  steadfast  in  the  hour  of  trial. 

History  tells  us  with  what  courage  the  persecuted  friars 
faced  the  enemy.  Only  after  the  executioner's  knife  had 
done  its  deadly  work,  did  these  fearless  shepherds  of  souls 
cease  to  labor  for  the  well-being  of  their  beloved  flock.  Be- 
tween October,  1642,  and  August,  1646,  four  members  of 
the  province  mounted  the  scaffold  and  died  for  the  faith, 
while  one  friar  at  last  succumbed  to  the  hardships  of  prison 
life. 2  Though  small  in  itself,  this  number  must  appear  con- 
siderable, if  one  remembers  that  at  the  time  hardly  more 
than  thirty  Franciscans  were  engaged  on  the  missions  in 
England,  and  that  before  the  year  1649,  in  all  only  twenty- 
one  Catholics  underwent  public  martyrdom  for  the  faith.^ 

Among  the  first  victims  of  Puritan  animosity  and  in- 
tolerance toward  the  Church  of  Rome  was  Fr.  Christopher 
Colman.*  He  descended  from  an  ancient  and  prominent 
Catholic  family  whose  ancestral  estate  lay  at  Cannock  in 
Staffordshire.^  The  parents  of  the  future  Franciscan  friar, 
whose  baptismal  name  was  Walter,  remained  true  to  the 
faith  of  their  forefathers  and  taught  their  son  from  early 
youth  to  value  virtue  higher  than  worldly  wealth  and  dis- 
tinction. Anxious  to  give  him  a  thoroughly  Catholic  educa- 
tion, they  defied  the  penal  laws  and  sent  him  to  the  English 
College  at  Douai.     Walter  must  have  been  about  fifteen 

1.  Thaddeus,  The  Franciscans  in  England,  p.  286. 

2.  For  the  life  and  martyrdom  of  these  five  friars,  that  -will  engage 
our  attention  in  the  subsequent  chapters,  our  chief  source  of  information 
Is  the  Certamen  Seraphicum,  written  and  published  in  1649  by  their  con- 
frere and  contemporary,  Fr.  Angelus  Mason. 

3.  This  number  is  based  on  Spillmann's  Katholikenverfolgung  in  Eng- 
land, Part  IV,  pp.  235-320.  Of  these  twenty-one  martyrs,  nine  were  secular 
priests,  three  Benedictines,  four  Jesuits,  four  Franciscans  and  one  a  layman. 

4.  Thaddeus  has  embellished  the  Franciscan  Biographies  with  an 
account  of  this  friar,  from  which  we  have  freely  drawn  for  the  present 
sketch. 

5.  Thaddeus  supposes  his  grandfather  to  have  been  the  Walter  Col- 
man  whom  the  records  of  the  royal  visitation,  in  15S3,  represent  as  having 
forfeited  the  title  of  armiger  and  the  right  to  armorial  bearings,  probably 
because  he  rejected  the  spiritual  supremacy  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 


244  FRANCISCANS  AND 

years  of  age  when  he  accompanied  F.  "William  Eaton 
(Eiton),  a  priest,  and  two  students  to  the  continent.  On 
June  20,  1585,  he  entered  the  college  and  registered,  as  was 
customary  at  the  time,  under  the  assumed  name  of  Combe.® 
The  ensuing  year,  however,  on  November  28,  he  was  called 
home,  perhaps,  as  Thaddeus  suggests,  on  account  of  the  ill- 
ness or  death  of  his  mother.  In  1593,  his  father  entered 
upon  a  second  marriage.  Thereupon,  Walter  returned  to 
the  college  at  Douai. 

After  completing  his  studies,  Walter  went  back  to  Eng- 
land, probably  because  his  father  being  advanced  in  years 
wished  him,  as  the  eldest  of  his  sons,  to  assume  charge  of 
the  family  estate.  Wealth  and  social  standing  did  not 
hinder  him  from  closely  following  the  dictates  of  his  faith 
and  conscience.  Hence,  he  soon  learned  from  experience 
what  difficulties  loyal  Catholics  had  to  contend  with  in  the 
exercise  of  their  religion.  This  knowledge  in  turn  streng- 
thened or,  at  least,  engendered  in  his  heart  the  desire  to 
devote  himself  entirely  to  the  service  of  the  Church  by  re- 
nouncing worldly  pleasures  and  promises  for  the  nobler  but 
wearier  life  of  a  missionary  priest.  Apparently,  the  only 
obstacle  that  as  yet  prevented  him  from  taking  this  step  was 
a  loving  and  dutiful  regard  for  his  aged  father.'^  About 
1620,  however,  his  father  passed  to  a  better  life.  Now 
Walter  was  free  to  answer  what  he  believed  to  be  a  call  from 
above. 

It  is  very  probable  that  during  his  sojourn  in  Flanders, 
Walter  heard  it  told  how  Edmund  Gennings  had  laid  down 
his  life  for  the  faith  and  how  John,  the  martyr's  brother, 
had  thereby  been  converted  to  Catholicism.  Like  him,  these 
two  brothers  were  natives  of  Staffordshire,  a  circumstance 
that  must  have  roused  his  interest  all  the  more,  especially 
when  he  learned  that  John  Gennings  had  become  a  priest 
and  Franciscan  and  had  undertaken  the  restoration  of  his 

6.  Presumably  an  abbreviation  of  Comberford,  the  name  of  his  mother. 
See  the  Douai  Diaries,  pp.  206,  213. 

7.  It  is  reported  that  a  Walter  Colman,  presumably  the  martyr's 
father,  was  still  living  in  1617. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  245 

Order  in  England.  It  was,  therefore,  natural  that  he  should 
decide  to  proceed  to  Douai  and  seek  admission  into  the 
newly  founded  Franciscan  friary.  Accordingly,  he  settled 
his  temporal  affairs  and  about  the  year  1625  *  left  England 
to  execute  his  design.  We  can  imagine  the  joy  and  gratifica- 
tion of  Fr.  John  Gennings,  when  he  was  informed  by  Fr, 
Francis  Davenport,  then  superior  of  the  friary  at  Douai, 
that  Walter  Colman  had  arrived  and  desired  to  join  the 
Franciscan  Order,  Needless  to  say,  he  readily  granted  the 
necessary  faculties  for  his  reception,  and  in  due  time  the 
superior  clothed  the  worthy  postulant  with  the  habit  of  St. 
Francis  and  bestowed  on  him  the  name  of  Christopher  of 
St,  Clare. 

Despite  the  fact  that  he  was  already  over  fifty  years  of 
age  and  a  man  of  learning,  refinement,  and  experience,  he 
vied  with  the  youngest  member  of  the  community  in  ready 
submission  to  his  superiors.  For  him  the  year  of  novitiate 
was  in  very  deed  a  time  of  probation.  Acts  of  penance  and 
mortification  were  not  wanting  to  prove  his  constancy  and 
sincerity.  But  nothing  could  be  too  humiliating  for  him 
who  had  come  to  serve  God  and  not  himself.  During  his 
novitiate,  an  incident  occurred  that  shows  how  he  fostered 
the  spirit  of  childlike  obedience  and  heroic  penance.  En- 
dowed by  nature  with  a  taste  and  talent  for  poetry,  he  had 
written  for  his  own  edification  a  number  of  verses  on  death. 
Hearing  of  this,  the  novice  master  told  him  one  day  to  get 
the  poem  and  to  read  it  to  the  community  during  recreation. 
Gladly  the  novice  obeyed.  Hardly  had  he  finished  reading 
the  poem,  when  he  was  told  to  throw  it  into  the  fire.  That 
such  a  demand  was  mortifying  for  a  man  of  his  age  and 
attainments  goes  without  saying.  But,  to  the  edification  of 
the  assembled  brethren,  he  obeyed  without  the  least  sign  of 

8.  In  support  of  this  date,  Thaddeus  argues  that  Mason  In  his  Cer- 
tamen  Scraphicum  "seems  to  use  the  term  Preses  purposely  instead  of 
Guardian.  Father  Bonaventure  Jackson  was  Guardian  at  Douai  in  1624  ; 
but,  as  he  was  wanted  on  the  English  Missions,  Father  Davenport  was 
appointed  to  succeed  him,  apparently  with  the  title  of  Preses,  until  the 
year  1626.  when,  at  the  meeting  of  the  Officials  of  the  Province,  he  was 
made  Quardian." 


246  FRANCISCANS  AND 

reluctance  or  discontent.  After  his  novitiate,  he  spent  the 
next  few  years  in  prayer  and  study.  At  last,  in  1633  (or 
1634),  he  was  raised  to  the  priesthood,  whereupon  Fr.  John 
Gennings  summoned  him  to  the  missions  in  England.  He 
had  hardly  set  foot  on  English  soil,  when  .government  spies 
suspecting  his  character  placed  him  under  arrest.  Later, 
on  searching  him,  they  found  that  below  the  secular  dress 
he  wore  a  queer  sort  of  shirt. 

"What  kind  of  man  is  this,"  they  exclaimed,  "who 
travels  in  such  clothes?" 

How  differently  the  holy  man  would  have  fared,  had 
his  enemies  known  that  the  object  of  the  uncivil  remark 
was  the  tunic  of  a  Franciscan  friar.  But  his  ready  wit  was 
equal  to  the  emergency. 

' '  Are  you  not  ashamed, ' '  he  fell  in  with  seeming  indigna- 
tion, "thus  to  display  the  poverty  and  distress  of  a  genMe- 
man  M^ho  has  spent  all  his  money  in  traveling,  and  now  re- 
turns poor  to  his  native  land  ? " 

This  bold  rejoinder,  however,  did  not  allay  the  suspicion 
of  his  enemies.  They  would,  at  least,  satisfy  themselves  as 
to  the  religious  convictions  of  the  prisoner  and  demanded 
that  he  take  the  oath  of  allegiance.^  Now,  of  course,  there 
was  no  alternative.  "With  equal  intrepidity  he  declared  that 
he  was  a  Catholic  and  would  never  swear  the  tendered  oath ; 
whereupon  he  was  led  off  to  prison. 

This  time,  it  seems,  the  confinement  of  Fr.  Christopher 
was  of  short  duration.  The  intolerant  Puritans  were  not  as 
yet  in  full  control  of  affairs.  The  imprisoned  friar  found 
means  to  communicate  with  former  friends,  who  readily 
used  their  wealth  and  influence  in  his  behalf.  On  obtaining 
his  liberty,  he  immediately  proceeded  on  his  journey  to 
London,  where  he  exercised  the  functions  of  his  sacred 
ministry.    As  during  the  first  years  of  his  religious  life,  so 

9.  This  oath,  enacted  with  other  penal  laws  in  1606  after  the  Gun- 
powder Plot,  had  to  be  taken  by  all  who  refused  to  swear  that  they  were 
not  Catholics.  In  1625,  the  king  was  forced  by  the  House  of  Commons 
to  reenforce  the  oath.  It  had  been  condemned  by  a  papal  brief  as  partly 
derogatory  to  the  rights  of  the  Holy  See.  Hence,  Catholics  were  bound  in 
conscience  to  rejec,t  It. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  247 

now  the  earnest  truths  about  death  formed  the  constant 
topic  of  his  meditations.  After  his  novitiate,  he  rewrote 
with  the  consent  of  his  superiors  the  poem  he  had  been  told 
to  consign  to  the  flames.  On  the  mission,  this  child  of  his 
pensive  muse  must  have  still  been  very  dear  to  him;  for, 
despite  the  cares  of  his  sacred  calling,  he  completed  the 
poem  and  published  it.  It  is  entitled  Death's  Duel  and  is 
dedicated  to  the  Queen  of  England,  Maria  Henrietta.  "In 
this  poem,"  Mason  remarks,  "he  teaches  all  men  the  way 
and  manner  of  dying  well;  he  invites  all  to  meditate  ear- 
nestly on  death ;  graphically  he  describes  the  vanity  of  this 
deceitful  world  and  with  no  little  elegance  of  style  vi\ddly 
depicts  how  vice  must  be  shunned  and  virtue  practiced."^" 

After  laboring  a  number  of  years  in  England,  Fr. 
Christopher  yearned  for  the  more  retired  and  regular  life 
of  the  convent,  and  obtained  leave  to  return  for  a  time  to 
Douai.  Here,  apart  from  the  bustle  of  the  world,  he  divided 
his  time  between  prayer  and  study.  When  free  from  the 
religious  exercises  of  the  community,  he  worked  at  a  poem  on 
the  controversies  of  the  times  and  translated  the  life  of  St. 
Angela  Merici  into  English.  Apparently,  he  tarried  at 
Dou^i  only  a  year  or  so,  and  then  refreshed  in  soul  and  body 
again  departed  for  the  missions.  "His  wit  and  brilliant 
talents,"  says  Hope,  "his  placid  and  cheerful  temper,  and 
the  polished  manners  which  he  had  acquired  in  his  social 
position  in  the  world,  made  him  generally  popular,  and 
helped  on  his  missionary  work."^^  For  a  long  time,  we  are 
told,  even  professional  priest  catchers  failed  to  detect  the 
real  character  of  the  handsome  and  well-dressed  gentleman 
whom  every  now  and  then  they  chanced  to  meet  on  the 
streets  of  the  metropolis. 

For  several  years,  Fr.  Christopher  braved  the  perils  that 
beset  his  holy  profession.  The  Puritan  faction  had  grad- 
ually become  more  and  more  aggressive  until,  in  the  spring 
of  1641,  the  Commons  compelled  Charles  to  decree  a  rigor- 

10.  Mason,  p.  218. 

11.  Hope,  Franciscan  Martyrs  in  England,  p.  126. 


248  FRANCISCANS  AND 

ous  enforcement  of  the  penal  laws  against  Catholics.  Among 
the  first  priests  apprehended  and  imprisoned  was  Fr. 
Christopher.  After  repeated  hearings.before  various  magis- 
trates, the  zealous  friar  together  with  five  secular  priests 
and  two  Benedictines  was  placed,  on  December  8  of  the 
same  year,  at  the  bar  of  the  Old  Bailey.  Here,  a  certain 
Wadsworth,  an  apostate  Catholic,  testified  on  oath  that  he 
knew  Fr.  Christopher  to  be  a  Franciscan  and  priest,  having 
seen  him  clad  with  the  habit  of  the  Franciscans  in  their 
friary  at  Douai.  On  this  evidence,  the  judge  declared  the 
accused  guilty  of  treason  and  condemned  him  to  be  hanged, 
drawn,  and  quartered  on  the  following  Monday.  There- 
upon the  aged  friar  and  his  six  ^^  companions  were  brought 
back  to  Newgate. 

During  the  remainder  of  the  week,  while  they  lay  in 
prison  preparing  themselves  for  the  final  conflict,  the  French 
ambassador  made  efforts  for  their  release.  Accordingly,  the 
king  reprieved  the  sentence  of  the  court  and  asked  the  ad- 
vice of  both  houses  of  parliament  regarding  a  pardon  for 
the  condemned  priests,  suggesting  that  it  might  quiet  the 
rising  rebellion  in  Ireland.  The  Puritan  Commons  proved 
obstinate  and  demanded  that  at  least  four  of  the  priests, 
among  them  Fr.  Christopher,  be  dealt  with  according  to 
the  law.  Then,  after  much  debating,  both  houses  voted  the 
death  of  all  six,^^  and  in  the  end  the  king  found  it  expedient 
to  yield.  '  *  If  you  think  the  execution  of  these  persons, ' '  his 
message  read,  ''so  very  necessary  to  the  great  and  pious 
work  of  reformation,  we  refer  it  wholly  to  you,  declaring 
hereby,  that  upon  such  your  resolution  signified  to  the  min- 
isters of  justice,  our  warrant  for  their  reprieve  is  deter- 
mined, and  the  law  to  have  its  course."  In  this  way,  the 
weak  monarch  shook  the  responsibility  from  his  own  shoul- 
ders and  left  the  innocent  victims  of  his  temporizing  policy 
to  the  mercy  of  the  Puritans.  As  yet,  however,  these  were 
not  so  well  established  in  power  as  to  proceed  without  royal 

12.  One  of  their  number  had  been  acquitted,  probably  for  lack  of 
evidence. 

13.  One  of  the  condemned  priests  had  already  died. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  249 

sanction.  Hence,  it  seems,  the  affair  was  dropped,"  Soon, 
also,  the  Civil  War  broke  out,  during  which  the  six  priests 
were  either  forgotten  or  purposely  left  in  their  dismal  dun- 
geon to  die  a  more  terrible  death  by  disease  and  starvation. 

Well-nigh  intolerable  must  have  been  the  lot  of  Fr. 
Christopher,  considering  his  age  and  character  as  well  as 
the  fearful  conditions  prevailing  in  Newgate  in  those  days. 
Chained  down  in  a  gloomy,  dank,  and  fetid  dungeon,  sur- 
rounded by  filth  and  vermin,  entirely  shut  off  from  the 
outer  world,  with  nothing  to  break  the  grave-like  silence 
but  the  gnawing  of  rats  and  the  curses  of  vicious  criminals, 
the  venerable  old  man  must  have  undergone  a  thousand 
martyrdoms.  Money,  it  is  true,  might  have  procured  him 
clean  straw  for  bedding  or  more  nutritious  food  to  relieve 
his  hunger  and  restore  his  declining  strength ;  but  as  a  poor 
Franciscan  he  had  not  wherewith  to  secure  the  good  will  of 
the  jailer.  Friends,  too,  might  have  come  to  his  rescue,  even 
though  they  would  thereby  imperil  their  own  safety :  but 
the  Civil  War  with  all  its  dangers  and  hardships  for  Cath- 
olics was  now  in  full  swing,  while  London  was  in  the  hands 
of  the  parliamentarians.  Least  of  all  could  Fr.  Francis 
Davenport,  by  whom  he  had  been  received  into  the  Order, 
and  his  fellow  friars  relieve  his  misery.  The  welfare  of 
their  persecuted  flock  forbade  them  to  expose  themselves  to 
the  fury  of  the  Puritans. 

Hence,  for  three  or  four  years,  while  four  of  his  brethren 
mounted  the  scaffold  and  died  a  martyr's  death  for  the  faith, 
Fr.  Christopher  had  patiently  to  wait  till  God  should  sum- 
mon him  to  his  eternal  reward.  "Not  for  him,"  Stone 
touchingly  remarks,  "was  the  glory  of  shedding  his  blood 
for  the  Faith,  surrounded  by  a  crowd  of  witnesses ;  for  him 
were  only  the  lingering  torments  of  abandonment  and  the 
ignominy  of  the  Cross.  "^^  At  last,  however,  sickness  and 
privation  had  done  their  work,  and  his  tried  soul  exchanged 
the  gloom  of  the  prison  for  the  glory  of  God's  blissful 

14.  Thaddeus,  on  the  authority  of  Clarendon.  See  also  Hope,  p.  218 ; 
and  Stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  130. 

15.  Stone,  p.  132. 


250  FRANCISCANS  AND 

mansions.  In  the  Franciscan  Martyrology,  he  is  commemo- 
rated on  November  1,  in  these  terms :  "In  London,  Blessed 
Christopher  a  Sancta  Clara,  Martyr,  who,  having  been  east 
into  a  loathsome  prison  for  the  confession  of  the  Catholic 
religion  and  sentenced  to  death,  weakened  by  squalor  and 
hunger,  gave  up  his  soul  to  God  in  prayer. '  '^' 

Surely,  the  last  moment  had  no  terrors  for  one  who  in 
life  had  so  diligently  studied  how  to  die.  Many  a  time,  no 
doubt,  when  lying  cold  and  hungry  on  his  bed  of  straw,  he 
recalled  to  mind  the  poem  he  had  written  years  before  and 
paused  to  reflect  on  the  words : 

Consider  wisely  what  thou  hast  to  do 

In  this  vain  world  with  serious  meditation, 

How  short  the  time,  what 's  likely  to  ensue, 
And  frustrate  not  the  end  of  thy  creation. 

Since  here  is  naught  whereon  thou  canst  rely 
But  to  be  born,  to  labor,  and  to  die. 

16.  His  name  does  not  appear,  however,  on  the  official  list  of  December 
4,  1886.  See  Acta  Minorum,  Vol.  VI  (1887),  p.  49  seq.  Accordingly,  the 
title  of  Venerable  is  not  prefixed  to  his  name. 


CHAPTER  IV 

VENERABLE  JOHN  BAPTIST  BULLAKER,  O.  F.  M. 

Studies  with  the  Jesuits  at  Saint-Omer  and  at  Valladolid — 
Desires  to  become  a  Franciscan — Enters  the  Order 
— Novitiate  a7id  years  of  study — Joins  the  English  Prov- 
ince— Departs  for  England — Arrested  and  imprisoned 
at  Plymouth — In  Exeter  jail — Before  the  judges — Con- 
veyed to  London  for  trial — Liberated — Twelve  years  of 
missionary  labors — Betrayed  and  captured  while  saying 
Mass — Court  proceedings  against  him — Tried  for  being 
a  priest — Condemned  to  death — Martyrdom  at  Tyburn. 

It  was  in  the  year  1622  that  Thomas  Bullaker,  the  only 
son  of  a  distinguished  Catholic  physician  in  Chichester, 
took  leave  of  home  and  kindred  and  boarded  a  ship  that  was 
about  to  set  sail  for  Flanders.^  Had  the  civil  authorities 
surmised  that  the  comely  youth  of  some  eighteen  summers 
was  bound  for  the  English  College  at  Saint-Omer  to  study 
for  the  priesthood,  they  would  undoubtedly  have  intercepted 
him  and  brought  action  against  his  parents  for  violating  the 
penal  laws  then  in  force.  To  forestall  this,  Thomas  had  dis- 
closed his  intention  to  the  Spanish  ambassador  in  London, 
who  alleging  important  business  matters  obtained  for  him 
the  necessary  passport. 

Arriving  in  Flanders,  Thomas  at  once  proceeded  to  the 
English  College  at  Saint-Omer.  The  Jesuit  Fathers  in 
charge  of  the  institution  soon  detected  the  excellent  qualities 
of  the  young  Englishman,  and  perhaps  also  expressed  to  him 
their  hope  of  one  daj^  numbering  him  among  their  own. 

1.  Mason  bases  his  life  sketch  of  Fr.  Bullaker  in  the  Certamen  Sera- 
phicum  (pp.  35-70)  on  the  writings  of  the  martyr  and  on  other  trustworthy 
testimonies.  These  writings,  he  tells  us  (p.  33),  were  preserved  at  his 
time  in  the  archives  of  the  English  Franciscans  at  Douai. 

251 


252 


FRANCISCANS  AND 


Venerable  John  Baptisi  Bullaker,   O.   F.  M. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  253 

That  Thomas  shortly  after  his  arrival  bound  himself  in  some 
way  to  their  Order,  seems  at  least  probable.  He  had  been 
with  them  only  three  weeks  when  they  sent  him  for  the 
higher  studies  to  Valladolid  in  Spain.  Here  he  registered 
as  an  alumnus  iuratus  of  the  English  College  under  the  as- 
sumed name  of  Thomas  Tailer.- 

But  his  mind  was  agitated  with  grave  doubts  regarding 
his  vocation.  More  and  more  he  felt  himself  drawn  to  the 
Franciscans.  Alone  in  a  strange  country,  without  an  ac- 
quaintance among  the  Franciscans,  he  was  at  a  loss  how  to 
proceed.  Fearing  at  the  same  time  lest  the  college  authori- 
ties might  dissuade  him  from  what  he  so  earnestly  desired, 
he  kept  the  matter  secret.  With  greater  zeal  than  prudence, 
he  spent  long  hours  of  the  night  in  prayer  and  meditation, 
slept  on  the  bare  floor,  and  subjected  his  body  to  the  pangs 
of  the  scourge  and  cilice.  This  he  continued  for  some  weeks 
when  he  began  to  realize  that  his  health  was  declining.  He 
at  length  took  courage  and  revealed  to  Father  Baker,  S.  J., 
his  confessor,  the  secret  of  his  heart.  How^  happy  he  was 
when  the  zealous  priest  consoled  him  and  assured  him  of  his 
support.  He  then  made  a  ten  days'  retreat,  at  the  end  of 
which  he  was  determined  to  enter  the  Order  of  St.  Francis. 

Without  delay,  the  Jesuit  Fathers  made  the  necessary 
arrangements  with  the  provincial  of  the  Spanish  Francis- 
cans. There  was  a  friary  about  six  miles  from  Valladolid, 
on  a  site  called  Abrojo,  i.e.,  Thistle,  on  account  of  the  wild- 
ness  of  the  surrounding  landscape.  Here  on  the  feast  of 
Corpus  Christi,  1622,  Thomas  received  the  Franciscan  habit 
and  the  name  John  Baptist.  Here,  too,  he  spent  the  year 
of  novitiate,  edifying  all  by  his  love  of  prayer  and  mortifica- 
tion. After  his  profession,  he  finished  his  course  in  philoso- 
phy and  then  studied  theology  at  Valladolid,  A\ala,  and  Se- 
govia. Finally,  at  the  age  of  twenty-four,  he  was  ordained 
priest.  Having  reached  the  goal  of  his  youthful  aspirations, 
his  soul,  long  since  inspired  by  the  example  of  so  many  of 
his  brethren,  went  out  wholly  to  the  foreign  missions.     But 

2.  stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  133. 


254  FRANCISCANS  AND 

"at  this  first  starting  point,"  as  Stone  observes,  "he  was 
prevented  by  the  virtue  of  religious  obedience  from  making 
a  second  mistake  as  to  his  vocation."^  Shortly  after  his 
ordination,  a  number  of  friars  had  again  been  selected  for 
the  flourishing  missions  which  the  province  had  in  the  "West 
Indies.  Fr.  John  Baptist  asked  leave  to  join  them.  But 
the  provincial  put  him  off,  telling  him  to  remember  England, 
which  was  equally  in  need  of  missionaries,  and  which  as  his 
native  country  ought  to  have  the  first  claim  on  his  interest 
and  zeal.  The  young  priest  willingly  submitted  and  hence- 
forth endeavored  to  fit  himself  in  every  way  for  a  missionary 
career  among  his  neglected  countrymen. 

Thus  about  a  year  elapsed  when  the  provincial  informed 
him  that  he  might  follow  the  summons  of  the  Belgium  com- 
missary and  join  his  brethren  on  the  missions  in  England. 
Fr.  John  was  overjoyed  and  devoted  ten  days  to  prayer  and 
meditation.  Then  having  changed  his  habit  for  a  secular 
dress,  which  he  obtained  for  charity,  he  set  out  for  Bor- 
deaux. Traveling  alone  and  on  foot  though  an  unknown, 
desolate,  and  swampy  country,  the  poor  friar  must  have 
suffered  greatly  from  anguish  and  fatigue.  At  last,  after 
many  hardships,  he  reached  the  French  seaport  and  secured 
passage  on  a  ship  bound  for  England.  From  his  modest 
bearing,  the  captain  of  the  ship  suspected  his  priestly  char- 
acter, and,  on  landing  at  Plymouth,  reported  his  suspicion 
to  the  mayor  of  the  city,  who  without  further  inquiry  had 
the  friar  arrested  and  cast  into  prison.  Here  he  languished 
for  eight  days.  The  weather  was  extremely  cold,  which 
added  greatly  to  his  sufferings.  Lacking  the  means  to 
secure  sufficient  and  wholesome  nourishment,  he  would  have 
i'Aiccumbed  to  hunger,  had  not  some  fellow  prisoners  shared 
their  meager  rations  with  him.  His  next  place  of  confine- 
ment was  the  county  jail  of  Exeter,  where  thrown  among 
criminals  of  the  lowest  type  he  was  to  await  the  opening  of 
the  Lenten  assizes. 

At  last,  the  circuit  judges  came  to  Exeter,  and  one  of 

3.  Ibidem,  p.  135. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  255 

the  first  to  be  summoned  for  trial  was  Fr.  John.  After  the 
usual  questions  as  to  age  and  profession,  the  judge  asked 
him  whether  he  was  willing  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance 
according  to  the  meaning  it  had  in  England. 

"As  far  as  the  allegiance  that  becomes  a  faithful  subject 
is  concerned, ' '  replied  the  friar,  ' '  I  will  obey  the  king  in  all 
that  belongs  to  him.  If  necessary,  I  will  confirm  this  by  an 
oath  and  prove  it  by  my  conduct  should  an  occasion  present 
itself.  In  the  proposed  oath,  however,  there  are  certain 
clauses  regarding  the  Supreme  Pontiff,  Christ's  Vicar  on 
earth,  which  I  do  not  fully  understand.  Hence,  with  your 
leave,  I  absolutely  refuse  to  take  it. ' ' 

The  judge  objected  that  there  were  priests  who  held  the 
oath  could  be  taken. 

"From  this  you  must  not  conclude,  however,  that  it 
can,"  was  the  quick  reply.  "Whether  your  assertion  is 
based  on  facts,  I  do  not  know.  At  all  events,  after  due  con- 
sideration, I  feel  convinced  that  the  oath  can  not  be  taken." 

Thereupon,  he  was  asked  whom  he  would  obey,  the  king 
or  the  Pope,  were  they  to  issue  contrary  and  conflicting 
orders. 

"I  imagine,"  the  friar  explained,  "that  we  must  obey 
the  commands  of  him  who  proceeds  along  the  lines  of  truth 
and  justice." 

Still  bent  on  ensnaring  him,  the  judge  cunningly  insisted 
that  he  should  state  who  he  thought  should  decide  in  that 
matter.  But  the  wary  friar  detected  the  trap  and  refused 
to  answer. 

It  seems  that  his  quick-witted  and  straightforward  re- 
joinders had  won  the  favor  of  the  judge,  who  finally  gave 
him  a  gentle  hint  as  to  how  he  might  escape  the  law. 

"Perhaps  you  will  change  your  mind  in  the  near 
future, ' '  he  said ;  ' '  you  may  ask  now  for  leisure  to  give  the 
matter  further  consideration." 

"What  my  opinion  may  be  hereafter,"  put  in  the  pris- 
oner, "I  can  not  at  present  discover.  Nevertheless,  I  hum- 
bly request  that  judgment  in  my  case  be  deferred. ' ' 


256  FRANCISCANS  AND 

l>eeply  resenting  the  attitude  of  the  judge,  the  captain  of 
the  ship  now  stepped  forward  and  produced  a  book,  which  he 
declared  to  be  a  missal  and  as  such  a  positive  proof  that  the 
prisoner  on  whose  person  it  had  been  found  was  a  priest. 
Though  no  one  in  court  was  able  to  read  the  book,  all  agreed 
that  its  content  was  dangerous  to  the  commonwealth. 
Finally,  someone  who  knew  a  little  Spanish  examined  it  and 
loudly  contended  that  it  was  merely  a  volume  of  Spanish 
plays.  Now,  of  course,  peals  of  laughter  rang  through  the 
court  room,  much  to  the  discomfiture  of  the  over-zealous 
captain. 

For  the  present,  Fr.  John  Baptist  was  brought  back  to 
prison.  A  few  days  later  the  jailer  received  orders  from  the 
Privy  Council  to  send  the  suspected  priest  to  London,  where 
he  would  be  tried  within  the  next  twenty  days.  But  this 
was  only  a  ruse  to  effect  his  release.  Hatred  against  priests 
was  not  so  violent  just  then ;  and  influential  friends  of  the 
friars  had  succeeded  in  interesting  the  higher  authorities  in 
his  behalf. 

On  gaining  his  freedom,  he  began  at  once  to  search  for 
his  brethren  in  the  great  metropolis.  He  had  hardly  taken 
up  his  abode  with  the  friars,  when  the  hardships  he  had  of 
late  been  subjected  to  began  to  tell  on  him.  He  was  stricken 
with  a  severe  fever,  from  the  effects  of  which  he  never  fully 
recovered.  Nevertheless,  as  priest  and  missionary,  he  sacri- 
ficed himself  entirely  for  the  welfare  of  his  flock,  gaining 
the  esteem  of  all  by  his  sterling  piety  and  by  his  untiring 
zeal  for  souls.  In  1638,  he  was  formally  incorporated  into 
the  English  province.*  In  what  esteem  the  brethren  held 
him  may  be  seen  from  the  fact  that  he  was  made  secretary  of 
the  provincial ;  and  in  1640,  he  became  titular  guardian  of 
the  newly  formed  district  of  Chichester,^  his  native  city. 

4.  Thaddeus,  The  Franciscans  in  England,  p.  206. 

5.  Mason,  p.  49.  Thaddeus  says  (p.  206)  that  he  was  appointed 
guardian  of  Oxford.  The  two  districts,  Oxford  and  Chichester,  were  estab- 
lished in  the  same  year,  1640.  Perhaps  Fr.  John  Baptist  was  at  first 
appointed  for  both  places  or  was  soon  transferred  to  Oxford,  since  Chi- 
chester was  his  native  place  and  he  could  escape  detection  more  easily 
at  Oxford. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  257 

Twelve  years  had  elapsed  since  his  arrival  on  the  English 
mission.  All  this  while,  he  had  hoped  and  prayed  for  the 
privilege  of  dying  a  martyr's  death.  But  it  was  a  time 
when  priests  were  comparatively  safe,  so  that  he  gradually 
despaired  of  the  martyr's  crown  and  longed  for  the  life  of 
seclusion  and  prayer  he  had  enjoyed  during  the  first  years 
of  his  religious  profession.  Accordingly,  he  asked  and  ob- 
tained permission  to  return  to  the  continent.  He  was  on 
the  point  of  leaving  England,  when  the  smoldering  embers 
of  Puritan  hatred  against  Catholics  were  again  fanned  into 
a  devastating  flame  by  the  rebellious  Commons.  Now,  of 
course,  he  decided  to  remain ;  especially  when  he  learned 
how  the  Tertiary  martyr.  Venerable  William  Ward,  had 
been  captured,  tried,  and  executed  for  being  a  priest.  Hop- 
ing to  share  his  happy  lot,  he  hastened  to  London,  the  hot- 
bed of  Puritan  intolerance.*'  Friends,  however,  compelled 
him  to  seek  a  place  of  safety.  A  few  weeks  later,  he  heard 
how  a  number  of  priests  had  been  seized  and  thrown  into 
prison.'^  Again  he  ventured  into  the  thick  of  the  fray,  but 
again  he  was  forced  to  retire.  At  last,  regardless  of  friendly 
entreaties,  he  went  a  third  time  to  London  and  sought  out 
the  provincial,  Fr.  George  Perrot,  who  gave  him  permission 
to  remain  in  the  city. 

With  undaunted  zeal,  the  heroic  friar  undertook  the 
hazardous  task  of  ministering  to  the  persecuted  Catholics. 
He  visited  the  loathsome  prisons  and  the  gloomy  homes  of 
the  aged,  poor,  and  sick,  administering  the  sacraments  as 
best  he  might,  distributing  whatever  alms  he  could  gather, 
and  confirming  all  in  the  faith  by  his  noble  example  of  self- 
denial  and  by  the  words  of  cheer  that  gushed  from  his  God- 
loving  soul.  He  was  lodging  in  one  of  the  most  dangerous 
parts  of  the  city,  when  one  day  the  priest  catchers  suddenly 
entered  the  very  house  where  he  was  staying. 

"Am  I  the  priest  whom  you  are  seeking?"  he  asked, 
fearlessly  stepping  up  to  them. 

6.  Spillman,  Katholikenverfolgung  in  England,  Part  IV,  p.  261. 

7.  Mason  thinks  that  among  them  was  Fr.  Christopher  Colman 
(p.  51), 


258  FRANCISCANS  AND 

BafBed  by  his  boldness,  they  replied  in  the  negative. 
"But,  besides  me  there  is  no  other  here,"  he  hastily  sub- 
joined, fearing  they  might  depart  without  making  further 
investigation.  On  the  following  day,  they  returned  and 
again  searched  the  house.  Fr.  John  Baptist  was  sitting  at 
dinner  and  had  his  breviary  lying  beside  him  on  the  table. 
The  door  to  his  room  stood  ajar.  On  passing,  the  spies 
looked  in,  but,  strange  to  say,  they  took  no  notice  of.  him. 
At  this  second  defeat  of  his  most  ardent  desire,  the  man  of 
God  was  much  disturbed.  On  the  one  hand,  he  longed  for 
the  martyr's  crown;  on  the  other  hand,  he  dreaded  to  cross 
the  designs  of  Providence.  Now  he  redoubled  his  prayers 
and  penances,  beseeching  "the  Father  of  mercies  and  the 
God  of  all  consolation  to  deign  at  last  to  hear  him  and  to 
number  him  in  the  ranks  of  the  martyrs. 

In  a  letter  to  a  fellow  priest,  Fr.  John  Baptist  recounts 
the  particulars  of  his  arrest  and  trial.^  "In  1642,  on  Sep- 
tember 11,  which  fell  on  a  Sunday,"  he  writes,  "it  pleased 
the  Most  High  and  Almighty  to  soothe  my  anguish  and  to 
console  me,  his  unworthiest  servant,  with  the  prospect  of 
obtaining  what  I  had  so  long  yearned  and  prayed  for." 
At  the  time  of  his  seizure  he  was  staying  in  the  house  of 
Lady  Powel,  a  very  pious  and  charitable  gentlewoman.  One 
of  her  maids,  however,  was  secretly  in  league  with  the  anti- 
Catholic  party,  and  it  was  through  her  greed  and  treachery 
that  Fr.  John  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  priest  catchers.* 
Having  finished  his  breviary  and  morning  meditation  on  the 
above-mentioned  day,  the  saintly  friar  vested  for  holy  Mass. 
Little  did  he  think  that  at  that  very  moment  the  pursuivants 
were  standing  in  the  street  below,  ready  to  enter  the  house 
at  a  given  signal  and  surprise  him  at  the  sacred  functions. 
Just  as  he  was  intoning  the  Gloria,  Wadsworth'°  rushed  in 
and  dragged  him  from  the  altar. 

8.  For  a  copy  of  this  letter  see  Mason,  pp.  53-63. 

9  This  we  leam  from  De  Marsys,  who  at  the  time  of  the  Puritan 
Revolution  was  in  the  service  of  Comte  d'Harcourt,  the  French  ambassador 
at  the  English  court.  He  was  present  at  the  trial  and  execution  of  Vener- 
able Bullaker.     See  Hope,  Franciscan  Martyrs  in  England,  pp.  140  seq. 

10.  The  same  who  captured  Ven.  William  Ward. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  259 

"Oh,  why  didst  thou  not  wait  till  after  the  consecra- 
tion?" exclaimed  the  friar.  "The  precious  body  of  my 
Saviour  would  have  strengthened  me  against  thy  violence, 
under  which  my  weakness  may  now  succumb. ' ' 

Blinded  with  hatred  and  rage,  the  heartless  zealot  in- 
sisted that  his  victim  accompany  him  through  the  streets  of 
London,  clad  in  the  priestly  vestments.  Only  after  being 
warned  of  the  possible  danger  to  himself,  did  the  base  in- 
former relent.  Thereupon,  he  confiscated  all  the  vestments, 
books,  rosaries,  pictures  and  oilstocks,  and  ordered  the  friar 
to  follow  him  to  headquarters." 

A  half-hour  after  their  arrival,  the  sheriff  entered  and 
asked  Fr.  John  whether  he  was  a  priest.  Glad  that  his 
hour  had  come,  the  man  of  God  assured  him  that  he  was. 

"What!  Durst  thou  violate  the  laws  of  the  kingdom, 
which  strictly  forbid  any  person  of  that  profession  to  set 
foot  on  English  soil  ? ' ' 

"Those  laws  are  wicked  and  opposed  to  Christian  jus- 
tice ;  therefore,  I  cared  not  a  straw  for  them.  If  you  pursue 
the  course  you  have  begun,"  he  added  fearlessly,  "I  dare 
say,  before  the  lapse  of  many  years,  you  will  pass  a  law 
making  it  treason  to  believe  in  Jesus  Christ. ' ' 

Then,  to  bear  out  his  assertion,  he  referred  with  glowing 
indignation  to  the  recent  outrage  which  the  intolerant  Puri- 
tans had  committed  against  Christ  by  defacing  and  pulling 
down  the  crucifix  in  Cheapside.  This  reproach,  of  course, 
infuriated  the  sheriff  and  his  attendants. 

"Where  in  Holy  Writ  does  Christ  command  that  a 
picture  or  a  statue  of  himself  be  made  ? ' ' 

"Albeit,  in  the  sacred  pages,  he  does  not  command  it 
expressly,"  the  friar  explained,  "still,  the  custom  is  sanc- 
tioned by  the  natural  law  with  which  the  divine  by  no  means 
conflicts.     Sound  reason  and  experience,  however,  tell  us 

11.  Lady  Powel  and  her  twelve-year-old  son,  who  was  serving  the 
martyr's  Mass  on  the  morning  of  his  seizure,  were  likewise  arrested  and 
brought  before  the  sheriff.  According  to  De  Marsys,  the  three  prisoners 
were  subsequently  thrown  into  different  prisons.     See  Hope,  p.  143. 


260  FRANCISCANS  AND 

that  the  insult  offered  an  image  touches  him  whom  the  image 
represents. ' ' 

Then  asking  whether  they  would  prosecute  for  treason 
the  man  who  would  outrage  the  king 's  image,  he  argued  that 
more  traitorous  by  far  is  one  who  abuses  Christ's  image,  as 
they  had  done. 

"What  has  brought  thee  to  England?"  demanded  the 
sheriff,  eager  to  change  the  subject. 

**To  lead  back  my  countrj^men  to  the  fold  of  Christ, 
whence  they  have  strayed ;  this  was  the  purpose  of  my  send- 
ing and  of  my  coming  ? ' ' 

"By  whom  hast  thou  been  sent  ?     By  the  Pope  ? ' ' 

"By  those  w^hom  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  has  vested  with 
due  authority  and  power. ' ' 

Satisfied  that  the  prisoner  was  a  priest,  the  sheriff  gave 
the  pursuivants  the  necessary  instructions  and  departed. 
What  followed  we  will  let  Fr.  John  relate. 

"Wliat  now  troubled  them  above  all,"  he  writes,  "was 
how  to  lead  me  off  without  danger  of  death  through  the  dense 
throng  that  had  gathered  at  the  door  and  was  waiting  for 
me.  For  this  reason,  the  pursuivants  decided  to  ask  for  an 
escort,  so  that  I  might  safely  accompany  them  to  prison. 
Accordingly,  to  avoid  the  fury  of  the  mob,  I  was  taken 
through  a  rear  door  that  led  into  another  street.  On  the 
way  to  the  prison  known  as  Newgate,  w^e  passed  by  the  house 
of  the  constable,  who  together  with  my  captors  gave  me  com- 
pany. Now  this  house  happened  to  be  a  tavern,  and  thither 
they  brought  me,  that  I  might  get  something  to  drink. 
While  were  were  here,  Wadsworth,  the  head  of  the  pur- 
suivants, asked  me  all  kinds  of  questions  regarding  my  name 
and  birthplace.  On  all  these  points,  I  openly  confessed  the 
truth,  because  I  had  made  up  my  mind  to  conceal  nothing. 
He  further  asked  me  with  which  gentlemen  of  the  county  of 
Sussex  I  was  acquainted.  I  told  him  that  years  ago  I  had 
known  two,  who  at  one  time  were  schoolmates  of  mine,  but 
now  belonged  to  the  parliamentarians ;  that  one  of  them  was 
Mr.  William  Morley,'  and  the  other  Mr.  William  Cauley, 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  261 

both  of  whom  had  been  decorated  with  the  order  of  knight- 
hood. Then  he  asked  me  where  I  had  studied.  For  some 
time,  I  answered,  with  the  Fathers  of  the  Society  of  Jesus 
at  Valladolid  in  Spain;  then,  through  the  kindness  of  the 
said  Fathers,  I  went  to  the  friary  at  Abrojo,  where  I  re- 
ceived the  habit  of  the  Seraphic  Father  Saint  Francis, 
passed  my  novitiate,  and  made  my  profession.  These  things 
I  told  him  quite  freely,  all  of  which  he  faithfully  reported  to 
parliament. ' ' 

The  next  day,  Fr.  John  Baptist  was  informed  that  parlia- 
mentary proceedings  against  him  would  begin  on  Tuesday, 
and  that  his  two  former  schoolmates  would  preside  as  com- 
missioners of  parliament.  Accordingly,  on  the  following 
morning  at  seven  o  'clock,  he  was  led  from  Newgate  to  West- 
minster. On  a  table  in  the  courtroom,  Wadsworth  had 
spread  out  the  sacred  vestments  and  other  articles  he  had 
seized  in  the  house  of  Lady  Powel.  After  examining  them, 
one  of  the  bystanders  remarked  that  they  were  of  rather 
ordinary  grade. 

'  *  By  my  troth,  much  too  precious  for  those  who  now  pos- 
sess them,"  returned  the  friar;  "I'd  have  you  know,  how- 
ever," he  continued  good-humoredly,  "that  I  could  have 
procured  more  costly  things,  had  I  not  apprehended  what 
has  already  come  to  pass." 

"Despite  the  inferior  quality  of  those  vestments," 
sneered  the  presiding  judge,  "idolatry  can  be  practiced  as 
well  in  them  as  in  more  precious  ones. ' ' 

"Prithee,  what  sort  of  idolatry  art  thou  referring  to  ? " 

"Is  it  not,  indeed,  criminal  idolatry  to  worship  bread  as 
God?" 

"We  do  not  worship  bread  and  wine  in  the  august  sac- 
rifice of  Mass.  Under  the  appearances  of  bread  and  wine, 
we  rightly  adore  and  pay  homage  to  Christ  our  Lord.  Such, 
from  the  days  of  the  Apostles  down  to  the  time  of  Martin 
Luther,  has  ever  been  the  unanimous  teaching  and  practice 
of  the  entire  Church." 

Just  then,  while  rummaging  the  articles  on  the  table, 


262  FRANCISCANS  AND 

someone  accidentally  discovered  the  altar  stone.  After 
closely  examining  the  inscribed  crosses,  he  shouted  tri- 
umphantly that  he  had  found  the  number  of  the  beast. ^^ 
All  eyes  were  turned  on  the  speaker,  while  the  friar  could 
hardly  refrain  from  laughing  at  the  man 's  stupidity. 

"Since  there  is  such  intimacy  between  thee  and  the 
beast,"  he  quizzed,  "have  the  goodness  to  tell  me  openly  and 
plainly  the  beast 's  name. ' ' 

The  judge  was  evidently  vexed  at  the  prisoner 's  playful 
and  fearless  manjier. 

"On  what  grounds,"  he  demanded  sternly,  "hast  thou 
ventured  to  violate  the  laws  of  the  country  ? ' ' 

"No  other  answer  suggests  itself  to  me  just  now  than  the 
one  St.  Peter,  the  Prince  of  the  Apostles,  and  St.  John  the 
Evangelist  offered  on  a  similar  occasion.  When  they  were 
called  upon  to  account  for  having  preached  the  name  of 
Jesus  contrary  to  the  command  of  the  Jews,  they  replied: 
'Decide  for  yourselves,  whether  it  is  right  in  the  sight  of 
God  to  hear  you  rather  than  God. '  ' ' 

"Mr.  Bullaker,"  Cauley  interposed,  "knowest  thou  not 
that  it  is  written :  'Fear  God  and  honor  the  king ? '  " 

"In  faith,  I  do  know  it;  but  I  know,  too,"  the  martyr 
added,  ' '  that  the  same  parliament  which  declared  the  priest- 
hood treason,  also  established  by  law  the  episcopate,  liturgy, 
and  ecclesiastical  offices  and  ceremonies,  all  of  which  you  in 
the  present  parliament  are  undoing. " 

"What  was  wrongly  ordered  we  are  warranted  to  ad- 
just." 

"I  certainly  see  you  have  tried  and  schemed  to  do  so. 
But  take  my  word  for  it,  the  very  next  parliament  after  this 
will  reject  and  remodel  the  religion  you  are  now  striving  to 
frame  and  establish," 

' '  That  day  thou  wilt  never  live  to  see. ' ' 

"Fully  do  I  realize  that  the  time  of  my  dissolution  is 


12.  He  refers  to  Apoc.  13  :18,  where  the  Evangelist  portrays  the  anti- 
christ. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  263 

at  hand;  yet,  what  I  have  just  foretold  will  come  to 
pass. '  '^^ 

"A  traitor!  a  traitor!  Who  are  to  be  blamed  for  the 
present  disturbances  in  England  but  thou  and  others  like 
thee?" 

"Would  to  God  there  were  in  this  kingdom  no  other  sort 
of  traitors  who  will  put  it  in  more  real  and  serious  dangers. 
Of  a  truth,  it  matters  little  how  many  treasonable  practices 
base  calumny  has  laid  to  the  charge  of  Catholics ;  I  defy  you 
to  point  out  to  me  one  case  that  has  been  proved  against 
them." 

Not  daring  to  accept  the  challenge,  they  quickly  re- 
treated to  safer  ground. 

"How  old  art  thou,"  asked  the  judge,  "and  when  didst 
thou  receive  holy  orders  ? ' ' 

' '  There  are  a  number  of  orders, ' '  the  friar  observed, ' '  of 
which  four  are  termed  minor;  then  follow  sub-deaconship, 
deaconship,  and  priesthood." 

"We  are  speaking  and  inquiring  about  the  last." 

' '  That  gentleman  there,  Mr.  Cauley,  knows  my  age  better 
perhaps  than  I  do." 

' '  Thou  are  thirty-seven  or  thirty-eight  years  old. ' ' 

"Deduct  twenty-four,  and  the  remainder  will  tell  you 
how  many  j-ears  I've  been  a  priest." 

"How  long  hast  thou  been  in  England?" 

"About  twelve  j^ears. ' ' 

"How  many  Franciscans  are  there  in  England." 

"Think  you  I'm  going  to  turn  traitor  to  my  brethren? 
Take  it  for  granted,  herein  you  shall  never  succeed.  If  I 
answer  freely  to  what  concerns  my  own  life,  it  is  because  I 
would  have  you  know  that  I  do  not  esteem  my  life  more  than 
myself.  But  in  all  that  might  injure  others  or  imperil  my 
brethren,  I  shall  try  to  be  extremely  cautious. ' ' 

"My  lords,"  broke  in  Wadsworth,  "this  man  is  so  obsti- 
nate and  so  resolute  in  what  pertains  to  his  duty  and  office, 

13.  WTiat  he  foretold  came  to  pass  in  1660,  when  the  Puritan  reign  of 
terror  ceased,  and  Charles  II  mounted  the  throne. 


264  FRANCISCANS  AND 

that  if  you  were  to  send  him  into  exile  by  one  port,  he  would 
not  hesitate  to  come  back  by  another, ' ' 

"You  are  quite  correct  in  your  conjecture,"  replied  the 
martyr  with  a  smile. 

After  putting  a  few  more  questions,  the  court  officials 
sent  a  written  account  of  the  proceedings  to  the  chief  justice 
and  remanded  the  martyr  to  Newgate,  to  await  his  final  trial 
and  sentence. 

When  the  general  sessions  opened,  Fr.  John  Baptist  was 
summoned  before  the  judges.  On  entering  the  court,  he 
blessed  himself  with  the  sign  of  the  cross,  saying  in  a  loud 
voice:  By  the  sign  of  the  cross  deliver  ns  from  our  enemies, 
0  God!  Then  the  clerk  ordered  him  to  raise  his  hand,  and 
having  read  the  indictment,  he  asked : 

' '  Guilty  or  not  guilty  ? ' ' 

*  *  If  by  guilty  you  mean  a  person  that  is  harmful  or  crimi- 
nal, I  positively  deny  that  I  am  guilty.  I  do  not  deny,  how- 
ever, that  I  am  a  priest. ' ' 

"Sayest  thou  then  thou  are  not  guilty?" 

"If  the  force  and  meaning  of  the  term  not  guilty  desig- 
nates one  wholly  innocent  of  a  crime,  then  I  swear  that  I  am 
not  guilty.  But,  never  shall  I  plead  not  guilty  if  you  take 
it  as  a  denial  of  my  having  been  ordained  priest ;  for  I  admit 
without  reserve  that  I  am  a  priest." 

' '  Thou  art  a  traitor !  a  traitor ! ' ' 

"If  besides  such  as  I  am,  the  kingdom  harbored  no  other 
traitors,  traitors  who  in  very  deed  are  enemies  and  subvert- 
ers  of  their  country,  it  would  be  now  in  a  far  better  and 
happier  condition  than  it  is. ' ' 

This  bold  rebuke  struck  home.  For  a  moment  there  was 
deathlike  silence,  until  someone  broke  the  spell  by  calling 
him  a  seducer.  At  this,  the  martyr's  countenance  beamed 
with  joy. 

' '  Thou  makest  me  exceedingly  happy  by  bestowing  upon 
me  the  same  title  that  the  Jews  bestowed  upon  Christ.  In 
sooth,  thus  was  our  Saviour  once  reproached  by  the  Jews. 
There  have  always  been  priests  in  England.     Saint  Austin, 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  265 

the  Apostle  of  England,  was  a  priest ;  hither  he  was  sent  by 
the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  Saint  Gregory  the  Great.  I  too,  am 
a  priest,  just  as  Saint  Austin  was." 

"Thou  hast  come  to  this  place  not  to  preach,  nor  to  insult 
and  disgrace  our  laws,  but  to  answer  whether  thou  art  guilty 
or  not. ' ' 

' '  I  have  never  made  myself  guilty  of  a  crime  against  my 
country  or  of  a  capital  offence,  and  I  shall  never  admit  it. 
I  do  not  deny,  however,  that  I  am  a  priest  and  that  I  was 
arrested  while  saying  Mass.  If  you  are  trying  to  make  me 
plead  not  guilty  and  thus  gainsay  my  priesthood,  you  will 
never  succeed ;  because  I  will  never  comply,  even  should  I 
suffer  a  thousand  deaths.  At  no  time,  will  my  conscience 
permit  me  to  stoop  so  low  as  to  admit  that  the  priesthood  is 
a  crime.  Of  a  truth,  far  from  being  a  crime,  it  ought,  I 
think,  be  held  by  all  in  high  reverence  and  esteem." 

"What,  thou,  miserable  wretch,  hast  never  sinned?" 

"By  your  leave,  this  honorable  assembly  strains  and  mis- 
applies the  meaning  of  my  words.  Readily  do  I  own  that  I 
am  the  greatest  sinner  on  earth.  What  I  maintained  was 
that  my  being  a  priest  or  saying  Mass  does  not  make  me 
guilty  of  a  sin  or  crime.  This  is  the  sense  in  which  my  words 
were  to  be  taken. ' ' 

' '  Mr.  Bullaker, ' '  ventured  the  registrar,  ' '  hast  thou  not 
time  and  again  declared  and  confessed  that  thou  art  a  priest  ? 
Now  tell  us,  art  thou  guilty  or  not  ? ' ' 

' '  I  consider  myself  innocent  of  a  capital  crime ;  that  I 
am  a  priest,  I  readily  grant. ' ' 

"Art  thou  not  aware  that  thou  hast  infringed  the  law 
and  that  according  to  the  tenor  of  the  law,  thou  art  accused 
of  treason  1 ' ' 

' '  The  law  that  opposes  and  conflicts  with  the  law  of  God, 
should  be  made  light  of,  I  imagine,  seeing  that  I  am 
annointed  a  priest  of  Christ,  according  to  what  the  Royal 
Prophet,  inspired  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  foretold  regarding 
priests,  to  wit:  Thou  art  a  priest  forever  according  to  the 
order  of  Melchiscdech.     But,  forsooth,  as  you  have  set  down 


266  FRANCISCANS  AND 

the  priesthood  of  Christ  as  treason,  so  logically  you  are  apt 
to  make  the  same  provision  regarding  the  faith  in  Christ 
Jesus  himself. ' ' 

"But  such  happens  to  be  the  law;  and  to  violate  the  law 
is  a  sin  against  God,  the  author  of  all  law." 

"A  very  sound  argument,  indeed:  it  is  the  law,  and  to 
violate  the  law  is  a  sin.  Consequently,  the  Turks  did  right 
in  passing  a  law  that  prohibits  under  pain  of  death  the 
preaching  of  Christ  or  the  promulgation  of  Christianity 
among  them.  Now,  may  I  not  from  the  form  of  your  argu- 
ment infer  thus :  therefore,  whoever  preaches  the  name  of 
Christ  among  them  is  a  traitor,  inasmuch  as  he  acts  contrary 
to  the  law. ' ' 

' '  If  such  were  contrary  to  the  law,  it  were  indeed  wrong 
to  attempt  it. ' ' 

"Thou  art  a  good  partisan  of  Mohammed,  my  lord 
mayor,  and  a  staunch  defender  of  the  Koran."  But,  if  such 
be  the  case,  then  we  must  conclude  that  the  Apostles  by 
preaching  Christ  contrary  to  the  laws  and  edicts  of  the 
princes  and  emperors  not  only  acted  illegally,  but  actually 
committed  sin,  an  assumption  that  offends  pious  ears." 

' '  Thy  reasoning  is  unsound ;  a  distinction  must  be  made 
between  the  Christian  religion  and  the  Catholic  or  papistical, 
between  promulgating  the  former  and  promulgating  the 
latter." 

' '  As  Saint  Austin,  the  Apostle  of  our  nation,  came  hither 
to  convert  the  people,  with  the  same  intention  and  for  the 
same  purpose  have  I  come  hither,  to  convert  the  country  to 
the  true  faith  and  to  unite  it  to  the  Catholic  Church." 

"Ah,  then  perhaps  thou  art  Saint  Austin?" 

"I  am  a  priest  of  the  same  priestly  order  as  Saint  Austin, 
and  for  the  conversion  of  the  country  have  I  been  sent 
hither  by  the  same  Apostolic  See  which  supported  and  em- 
powered him." 

Not  knowing  what  to  reply,  they  laughed  and  again  asked 

14.  For  obvious  reasons,  the  martyr  does  not  recount  this  apt  and 
witty  retort  in  iiis  letter.  Hope  (p.  149)  seems  to  have  found  it  in  the 
manuscript  of  De  Marsys,  who  witnessed  the  trial. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  267 

him  whether  he  was  guilty  or  not.  The  undaunted  friar  dis- 
tinguished as  before  between  the  guilt  of  treason  and  the 
guilt  of  being  a  priest,  denying  the  first  but  admitting  the 
latter,  if  guilt  it  could  be  called.  Then  stepping  forward 
with  an  air  of  bold  defiance,  he  exclaimed : 

"Whether  the  priesthood  is  a  capital  crime,  Mr.  registrar 
and  thou,  my  lord  mayor,  I  place  before  the  tribunal  of  God, 
whose  countenance  beholds  justice,  and  who  will  one  day  be 
our  judge," 

' '  We  hope  to  do  nothing  that  we  can  not  render  an  ac- 
count of, ' '  was  the  rejoinder. 

"Never  will  I  admit  the  priesthood  to  be  a  crime,"  re- 
peated the  martyr.  "If  it  were  such,  then  to  be  a  priest 
were  the  same  as  being  a  traitor,  and  consequently  every 
priest,  inasmuch  as  he  is  a  priest,  is  guilty  of  treason  and 
must  be  put  down  as  an  enemy  and  betrayer  of  his  country. 

"And  such,  forsooth,  he  is ;  for  to  be  a  priest  is  contrary 
to  the  law." 

"The  parliament,"  he  contended,  "that  enacted  such  a 
law  against  priests  is  far  from  being  infallible,  since  it  denies 
this  prerogative  to  the  universal  Church  of  Christ,  the  pillar 
and  ground  of  truth.  "^^ 

Finally,  realizing  that  they  would  never  succeed  in  mak- 
ing their  victim  admit  himself  guilty  of  treason,  they  re- 
moved him  from  the  bar  and  had  him  taken  back  to  prison. 

In  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day,  Fr.  John  was  again 
summoned  to  court.  When  told  by  the  judge  to  acknowl- 
edge himself  guilty  of  treason,  he  replied  : 

"This  morning  I  proved  my  innocence ;  it  is  for  thee  now 
to  acknowledge  thyself  guilty  on  account  of  the  iniquitous 
sentence  thou  art  about  to  pass.     One  day  thou  wilt  have  to 

15.  Here  the  martyr's  account  breaks  off. — Lady  Powel,  we  learn  from 
De  Marsys,  freely  admitted  that  she  was  a  Catholic,  and  that  she  had 
harbored  priests  in  her  house.  Eager  to  gain  the  crown  of  martyrdom, 
she  steadfastly  refused  to  renounce  her  faith.  Hence,  she  was  imprisoned 
and  finally  condemned  to  death.  But,  on  the  day  set  for  her  execution, 
when  she  was  about  to  lie  down  on  the  hurdle,  a  messenger  arrived  from 
parliament  with  orders  that  she  be  taken  back  to  prison  and  kept  there 
till  further  notice.  Shortly  after,  she  was  pardoned.  See  Stone,  pp.  150 
seq. ;  Hope,  p.  150. 


268  FRANCISCANS  AND 

give  an  account  before  the  Judge  of  judges.  Then  every 
drop  of  blood  thou  art  about  to  shed  will  rise  up  against 
thee,  and  death,  far  from  being  for  thee,  as  it  will  be  for  thy 
yictim,  a  passage  to  glory,  will  be  an  entrance  to  darkness 
and  punishment  that  will  last  for  all  eternity. ' ' 

"The  punishment,"  laughed  the  impious  judge, 
"matches  its  duration.  But  that's  a  long  way  off.  Mean- 
while I  will  pass  upon  thee  a  sentence  which  will  send  thee 
to  pave  the  place  with  which  thou  dost  threaten  me. ' ' 

"I  hope  in  the  mercy  of  God,"  declared  the  friar, 
"and  I  pray  Him  to  grant  a  better  lot  even  to  my  per- 
secutors."^® 

Now  the  judge  turned  to  the  twelve  jurymen  and  said : 

"The  prisoner  is  convicted  of  treason  by  his  own  con- 
fession. More  evidence  you  need  not.  As  to  the  rest,  re- 
member well  your  oath  and  duty  to  return  a  just  verdict, 
having  God  in  your  mind. ' ' 

After  a  brief  deliberation,  the  jury  unanimously  de- 
clared that  they  were  for  referring  the  case  to  parliament, 
since  the  prisoner  had  sufficiently  established  his  innocence. 
This  angered  the  judge.  Urging  the  friar's  admission  that 
he  was  a  priest,  he  ignored  the  jury's  verdict  and  sentenced 
the  prisoner  to  death. 

"According  to  the  law,"  he  said,  "thou  shalt  return 
whence  thou  earnest;  thereupon,  thou  shalt  be  drawn  on  a 
hurdle  to  the  place  of  execution,  namely,  to  Tyburn,  and 
put  to  death :  thou  shalt  be  hanged,  cut  down  alive,  disem- 
bowelled, and  quartered." 

At  this,  the  friar  fell  on  his  knees,  raised  his  eyes  to 
heaven  and  intoned  the  Te  Deum.  Then  rising,  he  thanked 
the  assembly  and  accompanied  the  guards  back  to  Newgate. 

Although  the  day  for  his  execution  had  not  been  fixed, 
Fr.  John  realized  that  the  long  desired  martyr's  crown 
would  soon  be  his.  We  can  imagine  how  zealously  he  used 
his  last  days  in  prison  to  prepare  himself  for  the  final  strug- 
gle.    The  time  not  spent  in  prayer  and  meditation  he  de- 

16.   See  Hope,  p.  150. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  269 

voted  to  works  of  charity.  The  Capuchin  friars,  who  had 
a  convent  near  the  royal  palace,  came  to  ask  his  prayers; 
they  were  living  in  great  fear  and  anxiety,  for  the  hatred 
of  the  Puritans  had  of  late  become  more  insolent  and  aggres- 
sive. Catholics  from  all  parts  of  the  city  risked  their  own 
safety  and  visited  him  to  ask  his  counsel  and  to  obtain  his 
priestly  blessing.  It  was  apparently  during  one  of  these 
visits  that  he  was  informed  of  the  day  appointed  for  his 
martyrdom. 

"I  thank  thee  heartily,  my  friend,"  he  rejoined,  smiling 
gently,  ''for  these  long  desired  and  most  happy  tidings. 
Believe  me,  were  it  not  for  my  utter  lack  of  money,  I  should 
not  let  thee  depart  unrewarded ;  but  thou  shalt  not  be  with- 
out compensation. ' ' 

Great  was  the  joy  of  his  heart,  when  on  Wednesday 
morning,  October  16,  the  officers  came  and  led  him  from 
prison.  On  passing  out,  he  met  Fr.  Francis  Bel,  one  of  his 
confreres.^^ 

' '  Brother, ' '  said  the  latter  playfully, ' '  I  made  profession 
before  thee.     Why  takest  thou  precedence  of  me  ? " 

' '  Such  is  the  will  of  God, ' '  the  martyr  replied  sweetly ; 
' '  but  thou  wilt  follow  soon  after  me. ' ' 

Since  the  day  of  his  condemnation,  it  was  observed,  the 
sun  had  not  shone  over  London.  That  morning,  however, 
as  if  rejoicing  over  the  friar's  triumph,  it  burst  forth  in  full 
splendor.  With  brutal  violence,  the  officers  thrust  him 
upon  the  hurdle  and  tied  him  to  it,  with  his  face  upward. 
The  trip  to  Tyburn  over  the  rough  stony  streets  was  attended 
by  the  usual  sufferings  and  indignities.  At  last  they  came 
to  the  place  of  execution.  Fr.  John  was  unbound  from  the 
hurdle  and  brought  to  the  scaffold.  Far  from  trembling 
with  fear  at  sight  of  the  dreadful  instruments  of  torture 
lying  by,  the  martyr  turned  his  eyes  to  heaven,  knelt  down, 
and  prayed  aloud.  But  he  was  soon  interrupted  by  the 
sheriff,  who  asked  him  whether  he  had  anything  to  say. 

"Only  this,"  came  the  calm  reply,  "I  am  greatly  in- 

17.  Mason,  p.  178. 


270  FRANCISCANS  AND 

debted  to  you  and  to  my  country  for  the  very  singular  and 
unexpected  favor  I  have  received." 

' '  What  favor  is  it  that  so  affects  thee  1 '  * 

"A  favor  of  which  I  deem  myself  most  unworthy,  a  favor 
for  which  I  always  yearned,  but  never  dared  to  hope :  to  wit, 
to  die  in  defence  of  the  Catholic,  Apostolic,  and  Roman  faith. 
Yet,  despite  my  unworthiness,  the  goodness  of  God  has  privi- 
leged me  to  prove  my  loyalty  by  the  shedding  of  my  blood. " 

Then,  haVing  mounted  the  ladder  in  compliance  with  the 
sheriff's  orders,  he  turned  to  the  assembled  multitude  and 
discoursed  to  them  on  the  words  of  the  Psalmist :  Thou  art  a 
priest  forever  according  to  the  order  of  Melchisedech.  Fear- 
ing that  he  might  mention  the  Real  Presence  in  the  Blessed 
Sacrament,  one  of  the  Protestant  ministers  interrupted  him 
saying  he  was  doing  wrong  in  seducing  the  people  with  his 
false  and  pernicious  doctrine.  To  this  the  martyr  replied 
with  sweet  composure : 

' '  Sir,  patiently  grant  me  leave  to  speak  for  the  space  of 
one  brief  hour.  Thou  art,  indeed,  a  minister  of  the  king  of 
the  English  (Anglorum) ,  but  I  am,  though  most  unworthily, 
a  minister  of  the  King  of  Angels  (Angelorum).  Never  had 
I  a  more  sacred  and  exalted  pulpit  than  the  one  I  now 
occupy.  Thou  leavest  no  stone  unturned  to  undo  and  per- 
vert a  simple  and  untutored  people,  blinded  in  dark  ignor- 
ance. Let  me  then,  I  pray,  owe  thee  this  little  favor,  that 
at  least  from  the  scaffold  I  may  extend  a  helping  hand  to 
them,  and  that  my  tongue  may  be  unto  them  a  plank  by 
means  of  which  they  can  escape  shipwreck  and  destruction." 

He  had  not  yet  finished  his  discourse,  when  the  sheriff, 
who  was  listening  with  impatience  and  disgust,  suddenly 
gave  orders  that  the  sentence  of  the  court  be  carried  out. 
While  the  executioners  were  making  the  final  preparations, 
Fr.  John  raised  his  hands,  as  a  sign  to  one  of  his  brethren^* 
in  the  throng,  that  he  was  prepared  to  receive  absolution. 
Then,  commending  himself  to  the  mercy  of  God,  he  was 
rudely  thrust  from  the  ladder,  cut  down  while  still  alive,  and 

18.  Very  likely,  It  was  Ven.  Francis  Bel. 


THE  PROTESTANT  EEV.OLUTION  271 

subjected  to  the  usual  barbarities.  Seizing  his  heart,  the 
brutal  executioner  held  it  up  to  the  frenzied  multitude.  "Be- 
hold the  heart  of  a  traitor ! "  he  exclaimed  and  threw  it  into 
the  fire.  Having  beheaded  and  quartered  the  body,  they 
exposed  the  parts  to  public  view,  the  head  on  London  Bridge 
and  the  quarters  on  four  gates  of  the  city.^^  "But,"  con- 
cludes Mason, ' '  the  fetters,  as  it  were,  being  broken,  his  most 
holy  soul,  freed  from  its  narrow  prison  and  escorted  by  a 
host  of  angels,  winged  its  flight  to  heaven,  where  decorated 
with  the  victor's  palm  in  token  of  his  triumph,  it  exults  in 
enduring  peace,  in  undisturbed  rest,  and  in  the  splendor  of 
never-ending  glory. ' '-° 

19.  We  are  told  that  the  afore-mentioned  Franciscan  rescued  the 
martyr's  heart  from  the  flames.  Other  relics  were  either  snatched  from 
the  fire  or  bought  from  the  executioner  by  the  servants  of  Count  Egmont, 
who  was  present  and  later  drew  up  a  formal  statement  establishing  the 
authenticity  of  the  relics.  The  Franciscan  nuns  of  the  Convent  of  Our 
Lady  of  Dolors  at  Taunton  have  a  forearm  of  the  martyr,  a  corporal  which 
was  dipped  in  his  blood,  and  another  which  he  used  at  Mass  on  the  morn- 
ing of  his  arrest.     See  Hope,  pp.  154  seq. 

20.  His  name  appears  on  the  list  of  December  4,  1S87.  He  is  Ulie- 
wlse  reckoned  among  the  companions  of  Venerable  Francis  (Arthur)  Bel, 
whose  cause  of  beatification  was  again  taken  up  in  1900.  See  Ortolanl, 
De  Causis  Beatorum  et  Servorum  Dei  Ordinis  Minorum,  p.  14. 


CHAPTER  V 

VENERABLE  PAUL  HEATH,  O.  F.  M. 

Of  Protestant  parentage — Student  at  Cambridge — Religious 
doubts — Conversion — Enters  the  Franciscan  Order  at 
Douai — Novitiate  and  years  of  study — Esteemed  by  the 
brethren — The  scholar — The  priest — The  religious — 
Eager  to  join  the  English  missionaries — Permission 
finally  granted — Arrives  in  London — In  Compter  prison 
Before  the  mayor  and  the  commissioners  of  parliament — 
In  Newgate — Before  the  judges — Sentenced  to  death — 
Martyred  at  Tyburn. 

About  six  weeks  had  elapsed  since  the  martyrdom  of 
Venerable  John  Baptist  Bulaker,  when  a  fellow  friar  of  his, 
no  less  distinguished  for  sanctity  than  for  learning,  set  out 
for  the  English  missions,  in  the  hope  of  gaining  the  martyr 's 
crown.  The  story  of  his  conversion  from  Protestantism,  of 
his  career  in  the  Franciscan  Order,  and  of  his  martyrdom 
for  the  faith,  forms  perhaps  the  fairest  episode  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  Second  English  Province. 

Venerable  Paul  Heath,  the  son  of  a  Protestant  family  in 
Peterborough,  Northamptonshire,  received  at  his  christen- 
ing, on  December  16,  1599,  the  name  Henry.  He  was  an 
unusually  gifted  child,  and  from  early  boyhood  manifested 
an  insatiable  fondness  for  books.  To  give  him  the  advan- 
tages of  a  liberal  education,  his  parents  sent  him  at  the  age 
of  eighteen  to  the  university  of  Cambridge.  He  matricu- 
lated at  Corpus  Christi  College,  where  on  account  of  his 
engaging  manners  and  extraordinary  diligence  he  soon  won 
the  esteem  of  his  professors  and  associates.  From  one  of  his 
fellow  students,  who  later  became  a  Catholic  and  a  Jesuit, 
we  learn  how  earnestly  Henry  Heath  devoted  himself  to  his 

272 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION 


273 


Venerable  Paul  Heath,  O.  F.  M. 


274  FRANCISCANS  AND 

studies,  how  eagerly  he  sought  the  company  of  such  as  cared 
more  for  books  than  for  pleasure,  and  how,  even  as  a 
Protestant,  he  showed  a  decided  aptitude  and  inclination  for 
the  life  he  was  one  day  to  embrace.  Serious  doubts  regard- 
ing the  faith  in  which  he  had  been  reared  began  to  trouble 
his  mind ;  and  the  farther  he  advanced  in  his  studies,  the 
graver  became  his  religious  misgivings.  Not  less  prudent 
than  sincere,  however,  he  kept  the  matter  a  close  secret  from 
all  except  a  few  intimate  friends,  who  presently  joined  him 
in  his  search  for  the  truth.  Thus  four  years  elapsed,  when 
the  authorities  conferred  on  him  the  degree  of  bachelor  of 
arts  and  placed  him  in  charge  of  the  college  library.  This 
appointment  gave  him  an  opportunity  to  delve  into  the  rich 
mine  of  Catholic  literature,  largely  the  spoils  of  the  con- 
fiscated monasteries. 

At  this  time,  no  religious  controversialist  was  more 
extolled  in  the  Protestant  circles  at  Cambridge  than  "William 
Whitaker,  a  former  master  of  the  university.  With  absorb- 
ing interest,  young  Heath  read  and  studied  the  canon's 
attack  on  Cardinal  Bellarmine,  who  had  openly  questioned 
the  literary  honesty  of  the  Protestant  divine.  Consulting 
the  original  sources  to  which  the  disputants  referred,  Henry 
noticed  how  accurately  the  learned  Cardinal  quoted  his 
authorities,  and  how  his  less  scrupulous  adversary  misquoted 
and  misconstrued  passages  in  order  to  buttress  his  theses. 
This  roused  the  young  man's  suspicion  and  indignation. 
Night  and  day,  he  busied  himself  with  the  teaching  of  the 
Catholic  Church  and  soon  perceived  how  utterly  untenable 
Protestantism  was  on  logical  and  historical  grounds.  Mean- 
while, the  grace  of  God  enlightened  and  strengthened  him, 
so  that  after  the  lapse  of  about  a  year  Henry  was  determined 
to  embrace  the  old  faith.  It  was  probably  through  the 
imprudence  or  malice  of  a  fellow  student  that  the  affair  at 
last  came  to  the  notice  of  the  university  heads.  Knowing 
what  an  influence  he  exerted  over  his  associates,  the  authori- 
ties threatened  him  with  imprisonment  and  expulsion.     This 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  275 

only  served  to  confirm  the  young  man  in  his  convictions. 
He  secretly  left  Cambridge  and  proceeded  to  London.^ 

Here,  in  the  hotbed  of  Puritanism,  Henry's  constancy 
was  put  to  a  severe  test.^  He  sought  to  interest  the  Spanish 
ambassador  in  his  behalf ;  but  in  vain.  Still  more  disheart- 
ening was  his  experience  with  Mr.  George  Jerningham,  a 
well-known  Catholic  nobleman,  who  took  him  for  a  spy  and 
sent  him  packing  with  bitter  reproach.^  Altogether  at  a 
loss  how  to  prove  his  sincerity,  Henry  began  to  seek  the  aid 
of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  promising  eventually  to  dedicate  him- 
self entirely  to  her  service.  The  next  time  he  met  Mr.  Jern- 
ingham, the  nobleman's  attitude  was  wholly  changed. 
Through  him  he  became  acquainted  with  Rev.  George  Mus- 
cot,  who  after  due  preparation  received  him  into  the  Church. 
Thereupon,  provided  with  a  letter  of  recommendation  from 
the  Spanish  ambassador,  he  departed  for  the  English  Col- 
lege at  Douai. 

Henry  Heath  had  been  at  the  college  but  a  short  time, 
when  two  Franciscans  from  the  neighboring  friary  came 
there.  Their  modest  and  mortified  demeanor  caught  the 
fancy  of  the  young  convert,  and  he  conceived  an  ardent 
desire  to  join  their  ranks.  But  his  father  confessor,  whose 
advice  he  had  sought,  dissuaded  him  on  the  grounds  that 
such  a  life  would  prove  too  difficult  for  him  who  had  only 

1.  Mason,  Certamen  Seraphicutn,  pp.  73-146.  The  author  drew  the 
above  facts  regarding  the  university  career  of  Fr.  Heath  from  a  letter 
which  F.  John  Spencer,  S.  J.,  wrote  on  May  23,  1643,  about  a  month  after 
the  martyr's  death,  declaring  that  he  was  an  eye-witness  of  what  he  re- 
counts. See  Mason,  p.  74. — Four  of  the  martyr's  friends  likewise  converted 
to  the  Catholic  faith  and  embraced  the  religious  state,  one,  apparently  the 
above-mentioned  F.  Spencer,  joining  the  Jesuit  Order,  and  three  becoming 
Franciscans.  The  names  of  the  latter  are  not  known.  See  Hope,  Fran- 
ciscan Martyrs  in  England,  p.  157  ;  Gaudentius,  Bedeutung  und  Verdienste 
des  Franziskanerordcns  im  Kampfe  gegen  den  Protestantismus,  p.  176 ; 
Stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  156. 

2.  The  subsequent  facts  concerning  Fr.  Paul's  conversion  and  later 
career  are  vouched  for  by  Mason,  who  for  at  least  ten  years  shared  the 
same  roof  with  the  martyr  and  hence  had  ample  opportunity  to  observe 
his  private  and  public  life. 

3.  In  extenuation  of  the  ambassador's  and  the  nobleman's  behavior, 
we  must  bear  in  mind  that  at  the  time  government  spies  Infested  the 
country.  With  devilish  cunning  they  frequently  ingratiated  themselves 
Into  Catholic  households,  in  order  to  ferret  out  the  names  and  hiding  places 
of  priests  and  of  such  as  harbored  them.  An  instance  of  this  kind  is  related 
by  Stone  (p.  157),  where  a  certain  Beard  repaid  the  hospitality  of  unwary 
Caftiolics  by  denouncing  them  to  the  authorities. 


276  FRANCISCANS  AND 

recently  embraced  the  true  faith.  But  Henry  had  no  peace. 
Again  he  began  to  pray  to  the  Blessed  Virgin,  and  again  he 
experienced  her  aid.  It  was  probably  in  May,  1624,  that  the 
superior  of  St.  Bonaventure's,  Fr,  Jerome  Pickford,*  in- 
vested him  with  the  habit  of  St.  Francis  and  gave  him  the 
name  Paul  of  St.  Magdalene. 

"I  am  scarcely  able  to  relate,"  writes  Mason,  "what  a 
saintly  and  angelic  life  he  led  in  the  seraphic  lyceum.  In- 
deed, the  virtues  that  others  acquire  only  in  part  and  by 
degree,  were  united  in  him  and  sprang  up  all  at  once ;  both 
in  the  beginning  of  his  conversion  and  in  the  novitiate,  no 
one  was  more  austere  than  he  in  self-abnegation  and  self- 
discipline,  no  one  more  conspicuous  for  contempt  of  the 
world,  no  one  more  assiduous  in  prayer,  more  perfect  in 
renouncing  his  own  will,  more  fervent  in  the  love  of  God 
and  of  heavenly  things."  Having  completed  the  year  of 
probation,  Fr.  Paul  was  admitted  to  profession  by  Fr. 
George  Perrot  w^ho  was  governing  the  friary  in  the  absence 
of  the  superior.^  The  next  three  years,  he  studied  theol- 
ogy under  the  direction  of  Fr.  Francis  Davenport,  where- 
upon, in  1628,  he  was  ordained  priest. 

The  important  offices  which  were  subsequently  en- 
trusted to  him  show  how  highly  the  superiors  esteemed  the 
young  priest 's  virtue  and  learning.  The  first  chapter  of  the 
English  province,  held  in  1630,  appointed  him  vicar  of 
Douai,  professor  of  moral  theology,  and  spiritual  director 
of  the  student  clerics.  Two  years  later,  he  succeeded  Fr. 
Francis  BeP  as  guardian  of  the  friary.  In  the  same  year, 
after  the  death  of  Fr.  William  of  St.  Augustine,  he  was 
appointed  head  professor  of  dogmatic  theology.  The 
provincial  chapter  of  1637  again  elected  him  guardian,  at 

4.  Fr.  Bonaventure  Jackson  had,  indeed,  been  appointed  guardian  of 
Douai  in  1624  ;  but  we  know,  too,  that  he  was  called  the  same  year  to  the 
mission  in  England. 

5.  He  was  "governing  the  friary,"  says  Mason  (p.  80),  "in  the  absence 
of  the  preses"  (namely,  Fr.  Francis  Davenport),  who  had  been  sent  to 
Rome  to  plead  the  cause  of  the  newly-founded  English  custody  at  the 
general  chapter  held  on  Pentecost,  1625. 

6.  Fr.  Bel  had  been  commissioned  by  the  general  chapter  to  restore 
the  Franciscan    province   in   Scotland.  • 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  277 

the  same  time  entrusting  him  with  the  responsible  offices  of 
custos  and  provincial  commissary.  All  these  offices,  we  are 
told,  Fr.  Paul  discharged  with  great  fidelity,  although  he 
deemed  himself  unfit  and  unworthy  to  be  placed  over  others. 
The  Flemish  Franciscan,  Fr.  Peter  Marchant,  who  presided 
at  the  chapter  of  1637  and  who  was  intimately  acquainted 
with  the  members  of  the  English  province,  informs  us  that 
Fr.  Paul  was  ' '  a  mirror  of  meekness,  integrity,  and  sincerity, 
a  beacon  light  of  holiness,  a  model  of  religious  observance 
among  the  brethren,  and  in  the  science  of  theology  a  shin- 
ing and  glowing  star  among  the  luminaries  of  the  Douai 
University. ' ' 

Even  before  his  ordination,  Fr.  Paul  evinced  a  remark- 
able aptitude  for  the  sacred  sciences.  With  a  penetrating 
intellect,  retentive  memory,  and  acute  judgment  he  com- 
bined untiring  zeal  and  energy.  One  day.  Dr.  Poletius,  then 
regius  professor  at  the  local  university,  attended  a  public 
disputation  which  the  clerics  had  prepared  at  the  friary. 
The  manner  in  which  Fr.  Paul  defended  his  thesis  won  un- 
stinted applause  from  the  learned  divine.  *'I  will  say  can- 
didly," he  remarked  later,  "that  never  in  my  life  did  I 
hear  a  theologian  defend  his  thesis  in  a  more  learned  and 
skillful  manner." 

No  wonder  that  after  his  ordination  Fr.  Paul  was  per- 
mitted to  devote  himself  principally  to  teaching  and  writ- 
ing. In  order  to  deepen  his  knowledge  of  theology  and  bet- 
ter to  qualify  himself  for  the  sacred  duties  imposed  upon 
him,  he  carefully  studied  the  writings  of  Holy  Scripture 
and  of  the  Holy  Fathers,  the  decisions  of  the  Councils,  and 
the  history  of  the  Church  written  by  Baronius.  In  specu- 
lative theology,  he  was  an  ardent  and  efficient  expounder  of 
Bl.  John  Duns  Scotus,  the  founder  of  the  Franciscan  school. 
His  lucid  exposition  and  sound  vindication  of  the  Scotistic 
doctrine  was  the  frequent  topic  of  comment  not  only  among 
his  brethren  but  also  among  the  professors  and  students  of 
the  neighboring  university.  His  writings,  of  which  Mason 
adduces  thirty  titles,  ernbrace  every  branch  of  higher  learn- 


278  FRANCISCANS  AND 

ing,  philosophy,  dogmatic  and  moral  theology,  canon  law, 
ascetics,  and  history.  A  number  of  them  are  of  a  contro- 
versial character,  directed  against  the  English  Protestants 
of  his  day.  How  valuable  his  services  were  to  the  province, 
we  may  judge  from  the  fact  that  his  superiors  found  it  ex- 
pedient to  refuse  him  permission  to  leave  for  the  English 
missions,  because,  as  they  averred,  the  welfare  of  the  prov- 
ince demanded  his  services  as  teacher  of  the  clerics. 

Despite  the  manifold  cares  as  superior  and  professor, 
Fr.  Paul  found  ample  time  to  discharge  the  various  func- 
tions of  his  religious  and  priestly  calling.  In  1635,  when  the 
Franciscan  Sisters  settled  at  Nieuport,  he  became  their  ex- 
traordinary confessor.  At  the  same  time,  he  heard  confes- 
sions at  the  convent  of  the  Poor  Clares  at  Aire.  Like  a  true 
son  of  St.  Francis,  he  cherished  a  singular  love  for  the  sick 
and  needy.  When  he  heard  of  families  in  distress,  he  would 
visit  them  and  even  beg  alms  with  which  to  relieve  their 
wants.  In  him  the  lowly  and  unlettered  found  a  trusty 
friend,  ever  ready  to  instruct  and  advise  them  in  the  way 
of  salvation.  Sinners  and  heretics  seemed  to  be  the  special 
objects  of  his  priestly  zeal.  No  way  was  too  far,  no  weather 
too  inclement,  no  other  concern  too  pressing,  no  sacrifice 
too  great,  where  the  salvation  of  an  erring  soul  was  at  stake. 
For  their  conversion  he  offered  up  his  prayers  and  fasts 
and  in  the  end  won  them  over  to  Christ  not  so  much  by 
learned  discussion  as  by  the  engaging  humility  and  modesty 
of  his  demeanor.  His  success  in  this  respect  must  have 
been  extraordinary.  Mason  remarks  that  he  could  recount 
many  instances  of  conversions  wrought  through  the  labors 
and  prayers  of  Fr.  Paul,  but  that  he  refrained  from  doing 
so,  because  the  persons  concerned  were  still  among  the 
living. 

A  fair  glimpse  into  the  inner  life  of  this  holy  man  is 
afforded  us  by  his  Soliloqies  or  Documents  of  Christian  Per- 
fection,'' an  ascetical  treatise  similar  to  the  Imitation  of 

7.  A  third  edition  of  these  Soliloquies,  together  with  a  brief  life  sl^etch 
of  Fr.  Heath,  was  published  in  1892  by  the  Franciscans  of  St.  Bonaventure's 
College,  Quaracchi,  Italy. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  279 

Christ  of  Thomas  a  Kempis.  His  so-called  "Daily  Exer- 
cise,"® a  sort  of  rule  of  life  to  which  he  obliged  himself, 
shows  how  earnestly  the  saintly  friar  endeavored  to  guard 
against  worldly  principles  and  allurements  and  to  make  con- 
stant progress  in  holiness.  Among  these  exercises  or  reso- 
lutions, a  number  are  significant :  daily  to  make  a  hundred 
aspirations  of  love  to  Jesus ;  constantly  to  mortify  the  eyes, 
the  tongue,  the  passions,  and  the  affections ;  to  bear  patiently 
with  the  shortcomings  of  others ;  to  be  fully  resigned  in  time 
of  discomfort  and  want ;  to  seek  only  God  and  his  service ; 
to  disregard  the  love  and  esteem  of  men;  to  refrain  from 
all  needless  and  protracted  conversation  with  others ;  to  per- 
form all  things  in  the  spirit  of  obedience ;  in  particular,  to 
observe  the  following  rules:  (1)  to  renounce  all  right  and 
authority  over  everything  whatsoever,  even  over  my  good 
name  and  personal  convenience,  and  willingly  to  suffer  my- 
self to  be  despoiled  of  all  things  for  God's  sake ;  (2)  to  offer 
myself  as  a  servant  to  every  creature  and  to  do  all  possible 
good,  expecting  in  return  only  crosses  and  afflictions;  (3)  to 
live  as  entirely  dead  to  the  defects  of  others,  in  order  that 
I  may  continually  lament  my  own  defects. 

Prayer  and  mortification  constitute  the  fountain  whence 
the  saints  of  God  draw  light  and  strength  for  their  exterior 
activity.  Like  the  Seraph  of  Assisi,  Fr.  Paul  was  a  great 
lover  of  prayer.  Though  the  provincial  constitutions  ex- 
empted him  from  choir  duty,  he  deemed  it  a  privilege  and 
an  obligation  to  chant  the  divine  office  in  common  with  the 
brethren.  Many  a  time,  after  the  others  had  finished  the 
midnight  chant  and  meditation  and  had  retired  to  their 
rooms  for  a  brief  rest,  he  would  pass  the  remainder  of  the 
night  in  prayer  and  contemplation  before  the  Blessed  Sacra- 
ment. Especially  dear  to  him  was  the  Franciscan  custom 
of  praying  with  arms  extended  in  the  form  of  a  cross.  To 
encourage  his  brethren  in  the  practice  of  this  form  of 
prayer,  he  used  to  tell  them  what  singular  favors  he  had 

8.  Contained  in  the  Vita  Auctoris  prefacing  the  third  edition  of  the 
Soliloquies. 


280  FRANCISCANS  AND 

obtained  through  it  from  God.  Mason  says  that  he  often 
heard  the  saintly  friar  relate  the  following  incident.  A 
contagious  disease  had  broken  out  in  the  community.  Sev- 
eral friars  had  already  died  of  it,  and  a  number  were  dan- 
gerously ill.  When  Fr,  Paul,  who  apparently  was  guardian 
at  the  time,  felt  the  sickness  coming  on  him,  he  went  to  the 
church  and  with  his  arms  extended  spent  half  an  hour  in 
prayer.  Finally,  overcome  by  fatigue,  he  dropped  his  arms 
and  rose  to  his  feet,  only  to  find  that  the  symptoms  of  the 
disease  had  entirely  left  him. 

No  less  remarkable  was  his  devotion  to  the  Mother  of 
God.  To  her  intercession  he  ascribed  his  conversion  to  the 
true  faith.  He  carefully  carried  out  the  promise  he  had 
made  of  entirely  dedicating  himself  to  her  service.  As  a 
constant  reminder  of  this  pledge,  he  wore  a  little  chain  on 
his  arm,  which  he  never  removed.  Like  Bl.  John  Duns 
Scotus,  he  was  an  ardent  champion  of  her  Immaculate  Con- 
ception, defending  and  extolling  this  prerogative  of  Mary 
whenever  an  opportunity  offered  itself.  In  all  difficulties, 
trials  and  temptations,  he  had  recourse  to  Mary,  his  Mother, 
and  constantly  exhorted  others  to  do  likewise.  It  was  to  her 
that  he  took  refuge  when  everybody  and  everything  seemed 
to  stand  in  the  way  of  his  joining  the  missionary  friars  in 
England.  Shortly  before  his  departure  for  England,  he 
wrote  a  beautiful  letter,  or  rather  prayer,  to  his  heavenly 
Queen."  In  this  letter,  he  again  pledges  her  undying  love 
and  fidelity  and  thanks  her  for  all  the  benefits  he  has  till 
then  received  through  her,  recounting  above  all  how  she  has 
helped  him  find  the  true  faith  and  how  she  has  obtained 
the  same  grace  for  his  father,  who  at  the  time  was  a  man 
of  eighty  years  and  was  living  as  lay  brother  in  the  com- 
munity at  Douai. 

On  the  subject  of  Fr.  Paul's  spirit  of  mortification,  his 
biographer  becomes  quite  eloquent.  "Why,"  he  asks, 
"should  I  mention  those  bodily  penances,  abstinences,  and 
fasts  which  the  Rule  and  the  Statutes  of  the  Order  pre- 

9.  For  a  copy  of  this  letter  see  Mason,  pp.  108-1  on. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  281 

scribed  and  which  Fr.  Paul  observed  so  scrupulously  that 
he  looked  on  the  least  remissness  in  this  regard  as  a  seri- 
ous matter  ? "  To  these  austerities  he  was  wont  to  add  many- 
more  of  his  own  choice.  His  bed  was  not  the  customary 
strawsack,  but  the  floor,  where  without  removing  his  habit 
he  took  a  few  hours  of  sleep.  For  years  he  was  accustomed 
to  fast  on  bread  and  thin  broth,  two  or  three  days  of  every 
week.  Next  to  the  skin  he  constantly  wore  a  hairshirt  and 
an  iron  chain  about  the  waist,  and  often  disciplined  himself 
even  to  blood.  So  great  was  his  love  of  poverty  and  self- 
denial  that  he  always  reserved  the  shabbiest  habit  and  the 
dingiest  room  for  himself.  Despite  his  learning  and  sanc- 
tity, he  thought  so  little  of  himself  that  Mason  can  not  help 
remarking  how  condescending  and  considerate  he  was  in 
his  dealings  with  the  brethren  over  whom  he  was  placed. 
Thus,  in  the  solitude  of  the  friary  at  Douai,  did  the  man 
of  God  prepare  himself  for  the  supreme  sacrifice  of  liis  life. 
In  1641,  it  was  learned  at  Douai  that  the  persecutions 
had  again  broken  out  in  England,  and  that  seven  priests 
were  in  prison  awaiting  execution.  No  one  in  the  Francis- 
can convent  was  more  affected  by  these  sad  tidings  than  Fr. 
Paul,  especially  sinee  among  the  condemned  priests  was 
his  former  fellow  novice  and  friend  Fr.  Christopher  Colman. 
This  is  evident  from  the  letter  which  he  wrote  to  Fr.  Colman 
on  hearing  of  his  imprisonment  and  impending  martyrdom. 

To  his  eminently  honored  and  ever  beloved  friends,  the  illustrious 
Colman  and  companions,  Greetings. 

O  most  estimable  men,  most  noble  friends,  most  excellent  cham- 
pions of  Jesus  Christ!  Your  bodies  are  temples  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
your  souls  are  a  celestial  paradise,  your  blood  is  more  precious  than 
all  the  morning  and  evening  sacrifices  of  Aaron  and  all  his  sons. 
Alas!  how  great  is  my  misfortune  not  to  be  permitted  to  come  to 
you,  in  order  to  share  your  bondage  and  offer  myself  as  a  sacrifice 
with  that  burning  love  for  Christ  which  has  made  you  so  steadfast 
in  your  trials,  so  triumphant  over  human  threats,  so  resplendent 
with  all  gems  of  virtue  that  Solomon  in  all  his  pomp  was  not  so 
glorious  as  you  are.  O  loving  Jesus,  what  crime  have  I  committed 
that  1  am  not  allowed  to  share  your  fate?     Since  there  is  nothing 


282  FRANCISCANS  AND 

I  desire  more  in  this  life,  nothing  in  very  deed  can  satisfy  me   so 

long  as  I  am  separated  from  you.     Humbly,  therefore,  I  beseech  you 

to  pray  for  me,  that  I  may  come  to  you  and  never  be  severed  from  you. 

Your  unworthy  servant, 

P.  Magdalene.io 

As  the  days  wore  on,  he  was  so  carried  away  by  the  de- 
sire for  martyrdom  that  he  finally  addressed  a  letter  to  the 
provincial,  Fr.  George  Perrot,  asking  leave  to  come  to  Eng- 
land.   He  Wrote  in  part : 

Neither  new  nor  singular  is  this  my  petition,  but  only  what  stones 
and  plants  and  other  insensible  creatures  strive  after,  inasmuch  as 
all  things  by  a  spontaneous  and  innate  force  incline  toward  the  center 
and  end  for  which  they  have  been  created.  You  will  not,  I  think, 
deem  that  soldier  brave  and  magnanimous  who,  learning  that  the  army 
of  his  general  is  drawn  up  on  the  field  of  battle,  and  that  his  fellow 
soldiers  with  drums  and  trumpets  and  other  instruments  of  warfare 
are  clamoring  for  a  charge  with  the  enemy,  yet  indulges  himself  in 
base  sluggishness  at  home.  It  is  true,  I  am  unfit  (I  do  not  deny  it) 
and  altogether  unworthy  to  discharge  the  office  of  an  apostle  and  to 
contemplate  encountering  injury  and  reproach  for  the  name  of  Jesus, 
but  power  is  made  perfect  in  infirmity,  since  God  has  chosen  the 
foolish  to  confound  the  wise.  Of  this,  too,  I  am  convinced,  that  the 
obligation  to  serve  Jesus  Christ  is  as  well  incumbent  on  me  as  on 
others,  and  that  I  am  certainly  not  less  bound  to  suffer  for  him.  May 
the  most  loving  Lord  inspire  you  with  a  speedy  consent. 

The  provincial  was  deeply  moved  by  this  solemn  appeal. 
But  there  was  just  then  a  dearth  of  superiors  and  teachers 
for  the  Douai  friary.  Of  this  he  reminded  Fr.  Paul,  prom- 
ising, however,  to  summon  him  to  the  missions  in  good  time. 
Impatiently  the  man  of  God  waited  for  the  call ;  but  when 
it  was  not  forthcoming,  he  finally  approached  the  commis- 
sary provincial,  Fr.  Angelus  Mason,  fell  on  his  knees  before 
him,  and  amid  a  flood  of  tears  disclosed  the  anxiety  and 
grief  that  tortured  his  soul.  The  commissary,  however, 
though  hardly  able  to  refrain  from  weeping,  was  loath  to 
anticipate  the  decision  of  the  provincial.    Now  the  saintly 

10.  Mason  had  an  autograph  copy  of  this  letter.  Referring  to  the 
salutation  and  subscription,  he  reminds  the  reader  that  their  unusual  and 
inappropriate  form  was  owing  to  the  religious  troubles  in  England,  where 
letters  addressed  to  priests  were  often  intercepted  and  confiscated  by  the 
heretics  (p.  113). 


THE  PKOTESTANT  REVOLUTION  283 

friar  had  recourse  to  Mary,  the  Queen  of  Martyrs.  In  his 
childlike  simplicity,  he  composed  a  beautiful  letter  to  his 
heavenly  Mother,  asking  her  to  intercede  in  his  behalf  as  she 
had  so  often  done  before.  With  due  permission,  he  under- 
took a  pilgrimage  to  the  shrine  of  Our  Lady  of  Montague  in 
Brabant.  Passing  through  Ghent,  he  visited  the  commissary 
general,  Fr.  Peter  Marchant,  and  opened  his  heart  to  him. 
But  his  pleading  was  again  in  vain,  and  confident  that  Mary 
would  not  forsake  him,  he  continued  his  journey  to  Mon- 
tague. On  his  way  home,  he  once  more  sought  out  the  com- 
missary general,  who  at  last  felt  himself  constrained  to 
grant  the  friar 's  request.  ' '  I  opposed  him, ' '  the  commissary 
wrote  later,  ''I  tested  his  spirit,  but  his  zeal  ran  too  high, 
and  I  finally  supplied  him  with  an  obedience  under  the  con- 
dition that  his  immediate  superior  would  subjoin  his  ap- 
proval. ' '  Armed  with  this,  the  man  of  God  hastened  back 
to  Douai  and  reported  his  success  to  Fr.  Angelus  Mason, 
who  thereupon  also  granted  the  necessary  permission,  ' '  call- 
ing God  to  witness,"  as  we  read  in  his  Certamen  Seraphi- 
cum,  "that  he  was  impelled  by  some  hidden  force  to  give 
his  consent." 

From  that  moment,  Fr,  Paul  was  a  changed  man.  Natu- 
rally of  a  severe  and  somber  aspect,  his  every  look,  word, 
and  act  henceforth  reflected  the  joy  and  peace  that  reigned 
in  his  heart.  He  seemed  already  in  possession  of  heavenly 
bliss  when  he  spoke  of  the  glory  of  martyrdom,  or  when 
at  the  altar  he  offered  up  the  august  Sacrifice.  Without  de- 
lay, he  made  arrangements  for  his  departure.  Holy  zeal 
for  the  strict  observance  of  the  Franciscan  Rule  prompted 
him  to  refuse  the  secular  dress  and  the  traveling  money 
which  the  guardian  offered  him.  It  was  a  cold  day  in  De- 
cember, 1642,  when  he  bade  farewell  to  his  brethren  and  set 
out  for  Dunkirk.  Here  again  he  refused  to  take  money, 
but  asked  the  guardian  to  have  a  sailor 's  suit  made  of  his 
habit.  Thus  strangely  attired,  he  boarded  a  ship  for  Dover. 
During  the  voyage  he  made  friends  with  a  German  noble- 
man, who  perceiving  his  destitute  condition,  paid  his  ex- 


284  FRANCISCANS  AND 

penses,  and  on  lauding  at  Dover  offered  him  money  for  his 
journey  and  subsequent  stay  in  London.  But  refusing  to 
accept  any  further  assistance,  the  friar  thanked  the  noble- 
man for  his  kindness,  and  despite  the  inclemency  of  the 
weather,  set  out  to  travel  the  forty  miles  on  foot. 

Night  was  setting  in,  when  he  reached  the  metropolis.^^ 
Not  knowing  whither  to  turn  for  food  and  lodging,  he  finally 
about  eight  o'clock  ventured  into  a  tavern  near  the  bridge. 
But  the  innkeeper  finding  him  without  money  turned  him 
out  into  the  cheerless  night.  Overcome  with  hunger,  and 
fatigue  he  sat  down  on  a  doorstep  and  reflected  how  to  get 
information  regarding  Fr.  Colman  and  others  for  whom  he 
had  letters.  Here  the  master  of  the  house  found  him,  and 
startled  by  his  strange  appearance,  sent  for  the  constable. 
When  the  latter  arrived  with  his  assistants,  he  subjected 
the  holy  man  to  a  strict  examination.  On  searching  him 
they  discovered  certain  writings  which  he  had  sewed  into 
his  hat  before  leaving  Dunkirk.  These  roused  their  sus- 
picion ;  they  arrested  him  and  confined  him  for  the  night  in 
the  Compter  prison. 

The  next  morning,  ne  was  brought  before  the  mayor. 
Not  knowing  that  he  was  a  priest,  they  told  him  that  under 
pain  of  life  imprisonment  he  would  be  required  to  take  the 
oaths  of  supremacy  and  of  allegiance.  On  hearing  this,  Fr. 
Paul  resolved  to  disclose  his  priestly  character  when  the 
time  should  come,  and  silently  prayed  to  God  for  constancy. 
All  looked  askance  at  him  when  he  entered  the  courtroom. 

''Whose  papers  are  those  that  were  found  on  thy  per- 
son ? ' '  inquired  the  mayor,  eyeing  him  closely.^- 

11.  The  following  details  regarding  Fr.  Paul's  arrest  and  trials  are 
founded  on  his  own  narrative  in  English,  which  was  preserved  in  the 
friary  at  Douai  and  translated  into  Latin  by  Mason  (pp.  119-123). — 
London  was  at  the  time  in  the  hands  of  the  parliamentarians.  Their  ulti- 
mate ascendancy  in  power  and  the  late  encounters  between  their  army  and 
that  of  the  king  proved  but  new  incentives  for  them  to  take  bloody  reprisals 
on  the  Catholics,  who  were  known  as  having  espoused  the  King's  cause. 
Several  priests  had  recently  been  executed,  among  whom  were  Venerable 
William  Ward  and  Venerable  John  Baptist  Bullaker.  On  the  very  day  of 
Fr.  Paul's  arrival  in  London,  the  Capuchins  had  been  dragged  from  their 
convent  rear  the  royal  palace  and  thrown  into  prison.     See  Hope,  p.  176. 

12.  The  dialogue  form  is  ours,  based  on  the  martyr's  narrative. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  285 

"They  are  mine/'  replied  the  friar. 

"What  is  their  import?" 
"I  wrote  them  for  thy  government  and  parliament,  in 
order  that  through  them  I  might  render  an  account  of  my 
faith,   should   I  perchance  be   arrested  in   these   perilous 
times. ' ' 

"Why  camest  thou  to  England?" 

' '  I  came  to  save  souls,  just  as  Christ  Himself  for  the  sal- 
vation of  souls  came  down  from  heaven  and  sent  out  His 
Apostles,  with  the  command,  Going  therefore,  teach  ye  all 
nations;  baptizing — " 

"Thou  art  a  traitor  !"  interrupted  the  mayor. 

"Then  also  Christ  and  His  Apostles  were  traitors,  be- 
cause they,  too,  preached  contrary  to  the  laws  of  the  infidels 
and  heretics ;  wherefore,  we  must  not  abandon  God  for  the 
sake  of  men,  but  obey  God  rather  than  men." 

"Art  thou  a  priest?"  inquired  the  mayor,  growing  sus- 
picious. 

"The  priesthood  instituted  by  Christ  is  something  hon- 
orable," the  friar  returned;  "for  Christ  Himself,  a  priest, 
according  to  the  order  of  Melchisedech,  ordained  His 
Apostles  priests  at  the  last  supper  and  commanded  them  to 
consecrate  His  sacred  body;  elsewhere  saying-.  Receive  ye 
the  Holy  Ghost.  Whose  sins  you  shall  forgive,  they  ar6 
forgiven  them;  an^  whose  sins  you  shall  retain,  they  are 
retained.  Though  unworthy  of  so  great  an  honor,  yet  say 
I  in  reply  to  your  question,  I  am  a  priest." 

"Thou  are  not  a  priest  according  to  the  order  of 
Melchisedech,"  objected  a  Protestant  minister,  "because 
thou  art  of  the  Order  of  St.  Francis.  "^^ 

"Indeed,  sir,"  rejoined  the  friar,  "by  those  words  thou 
displayest  thy  ignorance.  For  the  order  of  St.  Francis  is 
an  order  of  religion,  professing  to  follow  the  example  of 
Jesus  Christ ;  whilst  the  order  of  priesthood  is  an  order  of 
consecration  for  the  purpose  of  consecrating  the  body  and 

13.  They  had  learned  that  he  was  a  Franciscan  frofii  the  writings 
found  in  his  hat. 


286  FRANCISCANS  AND 

blood  of  Christ  in  the  Blessed  Sacrament.  They,  therefore, 
that  receive  the  order  of  consecration  are  priests  according 
to  the  order  of  Melchisedech,  whether  they  be  Franciscans 
or  members  of  any  other  Institute." 

"Why  goest  thou  about  in  so  poor  and  mean  a  dress?" 
at  length  broke  in  the  mayor. 

* '  Indeed,  to  be  poor  for  Christ  is  to  be  rich ;  even  Christ 
made  Himself  poor  for  our  sake,  and  the  Apostles  of  Christ 
following  in  His  footsteps,  forsook  all." 

This  brought  the  hearing  to  an  end.  On  leaving  the 
courtroom,  Fr,  Paul  said  in  a  tone  of  sweet  composure,  "I 
find  consolation  in  the  example  of  the  Apostles,  who  went 
from  the  presence  of  the  council,  rejoicing  that  they  were 
accounted  worthy  to  suffer  reproach  for  the  name  of  Jesus." 
Since  he  had  confessed  himself  a  priest,  he  was  conducted 
to  Newgate  and  placed  with  criminals  already  condemned 
to  death. 

Some  time  later,  he  was  summoned  to  appear  before  the 
commissioners  of  parliament.  Here  again  he  openly  pro- 
claimed and  fearlessly  defended  his  priestly  character. 
When  asked  why  he  had  come  to  England,  he  answered  : 

"I  came  to  free  souls  from  the  slavery  of  the  devil  and 
to  convert  them  from  heresy. ' ' 

' '  From  which  heresy  ? ' '  his  enemies  insisted. 

"From  the  Protestant,  Puritan,  Brownist,  Anabaptist, 
and  many  others;  for  as  many  as  profess  these  are  justly 
termed  heretics. ' ' 

According  to  De  Marsys  who  was  present  at  the  trial, 
he  steadfastly  refused  to  reveal  the  names  of  those  who  had 
given  him  pecuniary  assistance,  and  answered  their  variou? 
objections  with  such  a  display  of  learning  and  alertness  as 
to  elicit  the  admiration  of  the  bystanders." 

During  his  confinement  in  Newgate,  he  penned  the  fol- 
lowing letter  to  a  priest : 

Very  Reverend  Father:     Your  consolations  have  filled  my  soul 
with  joy.     The  judges  have  not  yet  passed  sentence.     I  beseech  the 
14.  Hope,  p.  180. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  287 

divine  mercy,  that  it  may  turn  out  as  I  desire,  to  suffer  death  for  my 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Alas!  Father,  what  else  can  I  wish  than  to 
suffer  with  Christ,  to  be  rejected  with  Christ,  to  be  crucified  with 
Christ,  to  encounter  a  thousand  deaths  in  order  to  live  forever  with 
Christ?  For,  if  it  is  a  soldier's  boast  to  be  like  unto  his  lord,  far 
be  it  from  me  to  glory  in  aught  save  in  the  cross  of  the  Crucified. 
Let  them  come,  therefore,  let  the  executioners  come,  let  them  tear 
my  body  into  bits,  let  them  gnaw  away  my  flesh  with  their  teeth,  let 
them  pierce  my  sides  and  grind  me  to  dust.  For  I  am  fully  aware 
and  I  know  for  certain,  how  much  it  profiteth  me  to  die  for  Christ, 
This  momentary  suffering  secures  the  eternal  measure  of  celestial 
glory.  Keverend  Father,  pray  for  me,  a  miserable  sinner,  who  in  the 
wounds  of  the  Crucified  will  ever  be,  until  death  is  swallowed  up  by 
victory, 

Your  Reverence's  most  devoted 

Fr.  Paul  of  Saint  Magdalene. 

At  the  opening-  of  the  assizes,  on  April  11,  the  valiant 
champion  was  summoned  for  the  final  hearing.  After  the 
prescribed  court  formalities  were  gone  through,  he  began 
to  deliver  an  apology^ ^^  which  he  had  prepared  for  the 
occasion. 

"Most  noble  lords,"  he  said,  "I  deem  myself  fortunate 
in  being  permitted  to  propose  and  defend  the  justice  of  my 
cause  before  so  venerable  an  assembly.  At  one  time,  to  be 
candid,  up  to  my  twenty-fourth  year,  I  was  a  Protestant, 
professing  the  same  heresy  that  you  now  profess,  but  to 
quote  Job,  let  the  day  perish  tvherein  I  was  horn,  and  the 
night  in  which  it  was  said:  a  man-child  is  conceived.  In  like 
manner  can  I  denounce  and  execrate  the  day  on  which  I  .be- 
gan to  imbibe  the  Protestant  superstition." 

"Stop  him  instantly,"  exclaimed  the  judge,  "or  a  pad- 
lock shall  be  put  on  his  mouth.  Evidently  his  sole  purpose 
is  to  cast  slurs  and  abuses  on  our  religion ;  therefore,  let  him 
eschew  all  digression  and  reply  directly  to  the  accusation. ' ' 

At  this,  the  saintly  friar  again  openly  declared  his 
priesthood,  maintaining  that  the  laws  condemning  priests 
were  tyrannical  and  unchristian. 

15.  For  a  Latin  version  of  this  apology  see  Mason,  pp.  126-138.  The 
author  observes  (p.  126)  tliat  the  martyr  delivered  the  entire  oration  either 
In  the  court  room  after  sentence  of  death  had  been  pronounced  or  on  the 
scaffold  shortly  before  his  execution. 


288  FRANCISCANS  AND 

"Art  thou  guilty  or  not  guilty?"  they  insisted. 

' '  If  the  term  guilty  implies  a  crime,  then  I  am  not  guilty ; 
but  if  it  involves  what  I  have  already  confessed,  then  I  am 
guilty." 

"Art  thou  not  a  dead  man?"  suggested  one  of  the  by- 
standers. 

"To  die  for  Christ  is  the  greatest  glory,"  came  the 
quick  reply. 

Without  further  ado,  the  judge  condemned  him  to  death. 
At  this,  the  friar's  face  beamed  with  joy. 

"I  thank  the  most  august  assembly,"  he  said,  making 
a  low  bow,  ' '  for  the  singular  honor  bestowed  upon  me. '  '^^^ 

In  Newgate,  Fr.  Paul  devoted  much  of  his  time  to  the 
spiritual  comfort  of  his  fellow  prisoners  and  of  the  Catho- 
lics who  flocked  to  him  from  all  parts  of  the  city.  Many 
came  to  have  him  bless  the  cord  with  which  tlie}^  girded 
themselves  in  honor  of  St.  Francis;  others  brought  holy 
pictures  and  asked  him  to  put  his  signature  to  them.  More 
than  five  hundred  persons,  we  are  told,  received  the  sacra- 
ment of  Confession  at  his  hands.  Forty  Protestant  minis- 
ters, Mason  relates,  disputed  with  the  prisoner  on  matters 
of  faith.  So  completely  did  he  expose  the  fallacy  of  Protes- 
tantism that  afterwards,  in  the  presence  of  the  Spanish 
ambassador,  many  acknowledged  their  defeat  and  openly 
bewailed  the  sad  lot  of  so  learned  and  accomplished  a  man. 
The  valiant  friar,  however,  gloried  in  the  assurance  of  soon 
winning  that  crown  for  which  he  had  yearned  so  many 
years.  When  asked  how  he  could  be  so  happy  with  death 
staring  him  in  the  face,  he  replied,  "I  never  doubted  that 
my  most  merciful  God  would  grant  a  special  sweetness  to 
those  who  lay  down  their  life  for  justice  and  in  defense  of 
the  faith,  but  never  could  I  have  conceived  it  to  be  so  ex- 
cessive as  that  which  I  now  experience,  and  which  so  over- 
whelms and  melts  my  soul  that  I  can  hardly  bear  it."^^ 

How  he  must  have  rejoiced  when  at  last  it  was  told  him 

16.  Here  the  martyr's  narrative  ends. 

17.  Stone,  p.  173.     See  aLso  Gaurtentiu.s,  who  quotes  Challoner,  p.  179. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  289 

that  on  the  following  Monday,  April  27,  he  would  be  exe- 
cuted at  Tyburn. ^^  The  little  time  he  could  spare  from  his 
charitable  ministrations  was  spent  in  prayer  and  medita- 
tion. On  the  morning  of  the  appointed  day,  he  placed  his 
signature  to  the  following  protestation : 

I,  the  undersigned,  prepared  through  the  grace  and  favor  of  my 
sweetest  Jesus  to  offer  my  life  today  in  defense  of  His  holy  law  and 
of  the  Koman  Catholic  Church,  and  to  render  unto  Him  the  most 
excellent  homage  I  can  conceive,  next  to  the  winning  of  souls,  do 
hereby  with  my  whole  heart  declare  unto  all,  but  especially  unto 
Catholics  whom  it  more  concerns,  that  the  so-called  oath  of  allegiance 
can  not  and  ought  not,  with  any  restrictions  or  interpretations,  be 
taken  by  them  in  its  proposed  form,  without  incurring  grevious  sin 
and  the  certain  ruin  of  their  souls,  unless  they  repent.  In  defense  of 
this  I  would  lay  down  my  lifeia  just  as  readily  as  I  would  for  any 
other  article  of,  or  for  our  entire,  holy  faith.  I  am  fully  convinced 
that  I  should  not  die  righteously,  were  I  to  hold  any  other  doctrine 
or  opinion  regarding  that  oath.  In  testimony  whereof,  now  about  to 
give  my  life  for  the  cause  of  God,  I  subscribe  with  my  own  hand  and 
name,  in  Newgate,  Monday,  April  27,  1643. 

Thus  I  hold,  Fr.  Paul  of  St.  Magdalene,  now  destined  for  the 
scaffold.2o 

This  solemn  declaration  of  faith  the  man  of  God  read 
aloud  on  his  way  through  prison.  When  the  guards  led  him 
to  the  hurdle,  he  asked  to  be  tied  to  the  horses '  tails  and  in 

18.  Most  authors  and  also  the  Franciscan  Mariyrology  of  Fr.  Arturus 
assign  April  17  as  the  day  on  which  Fr.  Paul  suffered  martyrdom.  In  this, 
they  follow  the  Old  Style  of  reckoning.  From  the  martyr  himself,  who 
adopts  the  New  Style,  we  learn  that  it  was  April  27.  In  either  case,  how- 
ever, April  27   (N.  S.)  and  April  17   (O.  S.)  was  a  Monday  in  1643. 

19.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  Venerable  Heath  suffered  death 
not  so  much  for  refusing  to  take  the  prescribed  oath,  but  primarily  for 
being  a  priest  and  having  come  to  England  in  defiance  of  the  existing  laws. 

20.  Following  is  the  attestation  which  shortly  after,  on  May  8  (N.  S.), 
three  Jesuits  drew  up  and  together  with  the  protestation  presented  to  the 
Franciscans  at  Douai : 

We,  the  undersigned,  do  testify  that  the  reverend  father  and  already 
yloriotis  martyr.  Father  Paul  of  ^7.  Magdalene,  of  the  Order  of  .Si.  Francis, 
called  in  the  world  Henry  Heath,  read  the  above  protestation  or  resolution 
carefully,  and  that  he  wished  to  add  the  subscribed  icords  to  what  he  had 
read,  in  order  to  express  himself  more  definitely  regarding  the  injustice  of 
that  oath,  and  that  he  then  said:  With  all  my  heart  I  affix  my  hand  to  this 
paper  and  am  ready  to  sign  it  a  thousand  times  with  my  blood.  In  testi- 
mony whereof,  we,  the  undersigned,  liave  placed  our  signature.  On  this, 
the  2Sth  day  of  April,  old  style,  1643. 

Thomas  Harvey, 
Simon  de  Maxaron, 
William   Jordan. 


290  FRANCISCANS  AND 

this  way  dragged  to  the  place  of  execution.  But  they  ignored 
his  request  and  having  bound  him  to  his  bed  of  pain  dashed 
off  over  the  rough  roads  to  Tyburn. 

On  reaching  the  place  of  execution,  Fr.  Paul  was  re- 
leased from  the  hurdle  and  commanded  to  mount  the  cart 
that  was  standing  below  the  gallows.  He  obeyed,  praying 
with  a  loud  voice :  Into  Thy  hands,  0  Lord,  I  commend  my 
spirit.  Then  the  rope  was  placed  about  his  neck,  and  he  was 
given  leave  to  address  the  assembled  multitude.  He  told 
the  people  that  he  had  come  to  England  in  the  hope  of  dying 
for  the  defense  and  propagation  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Faith,  and  for  this  faith  as  well  as  for  his  priestly  char- 
acter was  he  now  on  the  point  of  shedding  his  blood.  Here, 
however,  the  Protestant  ministers  interrupted  him,  saying 
that  he  had  been  sentenced  to  death  not  on  account  of  his 
faith,  but  because  he  was  a  seducer  of  the  people. 

"With  no  more  right  can  I  be  called  a  seducer,"  re- 
turned the  fearless  martyr,  "than  my  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
was  called  a  seducer  by  the  Jews." 

Nettled  by  this  bold  retort,  they  ordered  him  to  be  silent. 
Thereupon,  he  asked  leave  of  the  sheriff  to  die  like  his  divine 
Savior,  stripped  of  his  outer  garments,  assuring  him  that 
he  had  made  such  preparations  of  clothing  as  decency  would 
demand.  Instead  of  an  answer,  the  sheriff  told  him  to  pre- 
pare for  death.  Raising  his  eyes  to  heaven,  he  remained 
motionless  in  prayer  for  about  half  an  hour.  Suddenly  re- 
membering that  it  was  the  feast  of  the  Martyr-Pope,  St. 
Anicetus,  he  intoned  the  hymn. 

Martyr  of  God,  who  following 
The  instance  of  God's  only  Son, 

Hast  triumphed   o'er   thy   enemies, 
And  triumphing  hast  heaven  won. 

Having  recited  the  hymn  to  the  end,  he  raised  his  hands, 
thereby  signifying  to  a  priest  in  the  crowd  that  he  was  pre- 
pared to  receive  the  last  absolution.  This  same  grace,  the 
martyr  himself  imparted  to  one  of  the  criminals  who  also 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  291 

was  about  to  die,  and  who  touched  with  contrition  at  sight 
of  the  saintly  priest  had  asked  to  be  reconciled  with  God. 

At  last,  the  executioners  advanced  to  carry  out  the  sen- 
tence. While  they  were  making  the  final  preparations,  Fr. 
Paul  repeatedly  invoked  the  names  of  Jesus  and  Mary, 
concluding,  ' '  0  Jesus,  forgive  me  my  sins  !  Jesus,  convert 
England  !  Jesus,  have  mercy  on  this  country !  0  England, 
be  converted  to  the  Lord  thy  God  ! ' '  Then,  with  a  sudden 
jolt  the  cart  was  drawn  from  under  his  feet  and  the  holy 
man  hung  suspended  beneath  the  gallows.  A  brief  strug- 
gle, and  his  soul  passed  to  the  mansions  of  eternal  bliss.  By 
a  singular  exception,  he  was  not  cut  down  until  death  had 
set  in,  whereupon  the  executioners  proceeded  to  perform 
their  bloody  task.  The  head  was  placed  on  London  Bridge, 
while  the  quarters  were  exposed  on  four  gates  of  the  city.^^ 
At  the  moment  of  Fr.  Paul 's  death,  tradition  says,  his  aged 
father,  who  was  still  living  as  lay  brother  at  Douai,  saw  a 
brilliant  light  ascending  into  heaven  and  turning  to  some 
of  the  brethren  told  them  that  his  son  had  just  then  died 
for  the  faith.  They  believed  in  the  truth  of  this  vision  when 
a  few  days  later  the  news  of  his  martyrdom  arrived.^^ 

In  the  Franciscan  Martyrology  of  Fr.  Arturus  of  Muen- 
ster,  Venerable  Paul  Heath  is  commemorated  on  April  14, 
in  these  terms:  "At  London  in  England,  B.  Paul  of  St. 
Magdalene,  Martyr,  who  shed  his  blood  in  defense  of  the 
Catholic  faith."" 

21.  Count  Egmont  was  present  at  the  execution  and  had  his  servants 
gather  a  number  of  the  martyr's  relics.  The  Franciscan  nuns  at  Taunton 
treasure  a  piece  of  the  rope  with  which  Venerable  Heath  was  hung,  a  bone 
about  three  inches  long,  and  a  corporal  dipped  in  his  blood.  See  Stone, 
p.  176. 

22.  Thaddeus,  p.  250.  See  also  Hope,  p.  186,  and  Gaudentius,  p.  180, 
on  the  authority  of  Challoner.  Mason  does  not  mention  this  apparition, 
probably  because  the  martyr's  father  was  still  living  in  1049,  the  year 
when  the  Certamen  Seraplncum  was  published.  The  venerable  old  lay 
brother  died  on  December  29,  1652,  at  Douai. 

23.  His  name  is  on  the  list  of  the  English  martyrs,  contained  in  the 
Acta  Minorum  (Vol.  VI,  p.  49  seq.).  He  is  also  among  the  companions 
of  Venerable  Francis  Bel,  whose  cause  of  beatification  received  a  new 
Impulse  in  1900.  See  Ortolani,  De  Causis  Beatorum  et  Nervorum  Dei 
Ordinia  Minorum,  p.  14. 


CHAPTER  VI 

VENERABLE  FRANCIS  BEL,   0.   P.  M. 

Of  wealthy  Catholic  parents — Student  at  Saint-Omer  and 
at  Valladolid — Ordained  priest — Seeks  admission  into 
the  Franciscan  Order — Novitiate  and  profession — Sum- 
moned to  the  English  Province — Priestly  zeal  in  Flan- 
ders— Provincial  of  Scotland — Missionary  in  England — 
His  character — Arrested  as  royal  spy — Suspected  of  be- 
ing a  priest — Conveyed  to  London  for  trial — Before  the 
commissioners  of  parliament — In  Newgate — His  trial — 
Guilty  of  treason — Condemned  to  death — Last  days  in 
Newgate — Drawn  to  Tyburn — Martyrdom. 

About  six  miles  from  Worcester,  in  the  parish  of  Han- 
bury,  stood  a  beautiful  residence,  styled  the  Manor  House  of 
Temple-Broughton/  Here  was  born,  on  January  13,  1590, 
Venerable  Francis  Bel.^  Though  belonging  to  the  wealthy 
class,  his  parents  were  widely  known  as  staunch  and  prac- 
tical Catholics.  His  mother,  of  an  ancient  family  by  the 
name  of  Daniel,  is  praised  by  Mason  as  a  virtuous  and  ac- 
complished woman.  From  her  itwas  especially  that  Arthur, 
as  the  future  martyr,  had  been  named  in  Baptism,  acquired 
those  habits  of  piety  and  refinement  that  characterized  his 
later  career. 

After  the  death  of  his  father,  in  1598,  Arthur  remained 
till  his  thirteenth  year  with  his  mother,  who  meanwhile 
entrusted  to  private  tutors  his  elementary  education.    There- 

1.  Unless  otherwise  stated,  our  narrative  is  based  on  Mason,  Certa- 
men  SerapMcum,  pp.  147-181.  Tlie  author's  sources  of  information  were 
the  martyr's  own  account  of  his  arrest  and  trial,  and  a  life  of  the  martyr 
written  by  Du  Bosque,  who  was  an  eye-witness  of  what  he  relates  (Mason 
p.  180). 

2.  We  adopt  this  spelling  of  the  friar's  name  in  conformity  with  his 
own  signature  to  a  letter  still  preserved  by  the  Franciscan  Sisters  at  Taun- 
ton.   Stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  182,  brings  a  photographic  reprint  of  It. 

292 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  293 


Venerable  Francis  Bel,  0.  F.  M. 


294  FKANCISCANS  AND 

upon,  she  sent  him  to  Acton  Place  in  Suffolk,  to  join  his 
two  cousins  in  their  studies  and  amusements.  Here  he  re- 
mained till  his  twenty-fourth  year. 

Already  as  a  boy,  Arthur  gave  unmistakable  signs  of  a 
higher  calling.  Hence  his  relatives  were  not  surprised  when 
he  told  them  of  his  intention  to  embrace  the  priestly  and 
religious  state.  His  saintly  mother  was  overjoyed  when  she 
heard  of  it  and  gladly  gave  her  consent.  Accordingly,  in 
1614,  he  bade  farewell  to  his  kindred  and  departed  for  the 
Jesuit  College  of  Saint-Omer  in  Flanders.  A  year  later, 
having  learned  that  he  wished  to  join  their  Order,  the 
Fathers  sent  him  to  Valladolid  in  Spain.  Here  he  devoted 
three  years  to  the  study  of  philosophy  and  theology ;  where- 
upon, in  consideration  of  his  unusual  progress  in  virtue  and 
learning,  his  superiors  had  him  ordained  priest. 

Two  years  before  this  event,. in  1616,  the  restoration  of 
the  English  Franciscan  Province,  begun  by  Fr.  John  Gen- 
nings,  had  received  the  official  approbation  of  the  Belgian 
commissary.  Since  then,  the  province  had  made  rapid 
progress.  A  number  of  English  Franciscans  had  joined  it, 
among  whom  was  Fr.  Nicholas  Day,  sometime  professor  of 
theology  in  the  friary  of  Segovia,  Spain.  Father  Bel  prob- 
ably heard  of  this,  and  knowing  what  the  sons  of  St.  Francis 
had  suff'ered  in  England  during  the  first  period  of  the  re- 
ligious upheaval,  he  asked  his  superiors  for  permission  to 
join  the  ranks  of  Fr.  Gennings.  Gladly  they  granted  his 
request  when  they  realized  that  it  was  more  than  a  passing 
fancy.  The  rector  of  the  college  made  the  necessary  ar- 
rangements Avitli  the  provincial  of  the  Spanish  Franciscans, 
and  on  August  9,  1618,  Fr.  Sebastian  de  Salazar,  guardian 
at  Segovia,  vested  the  pious  Jesuit  with  the  garb  of  St. 
Francis. 

Although  a  priest,  Fr.  Francis  deemed  himself  the  least 
among  his  fellow  novices.  In  humility,  mortification,  and 
prayer,  he  earnestly  strove  to  become  a  worthy  follower 
of  the  Saint  whose  name  he  was  privileged  henceforth  to 
bear.    The  year  of  probation  sped  quickly  by,  and,  on  Sep- 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  295 

tember  8,  1619,  he  made  his  profession  in  the  hands  of  Fr. 
Joseph  of  St.  Clare.  With  redoubled  zeal,  he  now  resumed 
his  theological  studies.  Before  the  end  of  the  year,  however, 
he  received  the  following  letter^  from  the  commissary  gen- 
eral : 

Whereas,  our  Most  Reverend  Father  General,  Benignus  of  Genua, 
has  committed  to  me  the  care  of  sending  to  England  and  Scotland 
such  fathers  as  seem  suitable  to  labor  in  the  Lord 's  vineyard,  for  the 
comfort  of  Catholics,  who  groan  under  the  heavy  yoke  of  persecu- 
tion, and  for  the  restoration  and  preservation  of  our  Order  in  those 
parts;  and  as  he  has  given  me  power  to  call  English  and  Scotch 
Religious  from  any  province  whatever:  I  enjoin  you,  in  whose  zeal 
and  piety  I  trust,  in  virtue  of  holy  obedience,  to  come  to  these  parts 
at  your  earliest  convenience,  in  order  to  be  sent  into  the  Lord's 
harvest  there,  or  to  prepare  yourself  for  the  mission  here  among  your 
countrymen,  until  you  shall  be  judged  fit  to  go.  I  herewith  recom- 
mend you  to  our  prelates  as  well  as  to  the  faithful  of  the  places  where 
you  happen  to  stop  on  the  way. 

Given  at  Brussels,  on  the  last  day  of  December,  1619. 

Father  Andrew  a  Soto, 

Commissary  General. 

Fr.  Francis  immediately  presented  the  letter  to  the 
Spanish  provincial  and  with  his  consent  and  blessing  set  out 
for  Flanders.  Great  was  the  joy  at  Douai  when  he  arrived. 
The  next  two  years  he  attended  the  Benedictine  College  of 
St.  Vedast,  in  order  to  complete  his  theological  course.  At 
last,  having  passed  the  necessary  examination,  he  received 
faculties  to  exercise  his  priestly  office.  During  the  year 
1622,  he  served  as  confessor  to  the  Poor  Clares  at  Grave- 
lines;  whereupon  he  was  appointed  in  the  same  capacity 
for  the  newly  founded  community  of  Franciscan  Sisters  of 
the  Third  Order  at  Brussels.  Here  the  saintly  and  learned 
friar  was  active  for  seven  successive  years,  directing  the 
nuns  on  the  road  of  perfection  and  counseling  them  in  the 
management  of  their  temporal  affairs.  To  this  day,  the 
community,  now  residing  at  Taunton  in  Somerset,  revere 
the  venerable  martyr  as  their  founder  and  chief  benefactor.* 

3.  See  Thaddeus,  The  Franciscans  in  England,  p.  201. 

4.  They  were  compelled  to  quit  France  at  the  time  of  the  French 
Revolution.     See  Thaddeus,  p.  46, 


296  FRANCISCANS  AND 

111  the  meantime,  the  number  of  English  friars  and  their 
mission  activity  in  England  had  increased  to  such  an  extent 
that,  in  1629,  the  minister  general  thought  it  feasible  to 
organize  an  independent  province.  The  next  year,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  first  provincial  chapter  was  held  in  the  con- 
vent of  the  Franciscan  Sisters  at  Brussels.  At  this  chapter 
Fr.  Francis  was  declared  provincial  definitor  and  was 
appointed  guardian  and  professor  of  Hebrew  at  Douai,  His 
stay  at  St.  Bonaventure's,  however,  was  of  short  duration. 

The  Belgian  commissary  general,  in  1632,  sent  him  as 
provincial  to  Scotland  with  orders  to  reorganize  the  Fran- 
ciscans in  that  country  into  a  province.  Accordingly,  to 
the  great  sorrow  of  the  brethren,  Fr.  Francis  left  for  Toledo, 
Spain,  to  attend  the  general  chapter,  and  from  there  he  set 
out  for  Scotland.  ' '  It  was  certainly  not  Father  Bel 's  fault, ' ' 
Thaddeus  observes  ,' '  that  his  efforts  were  not  crowned  with 
success.  But  the  time  was  not  opportune  for  the  restoration 
of  the  Order  in  Scotland."^  After  two  years,  therefore, 
Fr.  Francis  was  permitted  to  take  up  mission  work  in  Eng- 
land, as  he  had  long  desired.  Here  he  spent  the  last  nine 
years  of  his  life,  becoming  titular  guardian  of  London,  in 
1637,  and  provincial  definitor  for  a  second  term,  three  years 
later. 

Both  in  Belgium  and  on  the  English  missions,  Fr.  Fran- 
cis was  beloved  and  esteemed  by  all  who  came  in  touch  with 
him.  Though  severe  wkh  himself  and  zealous  for  the 
observance  of  the  Rule,  he  was  affable  and  obliging  towards 
others,  and  governed  by  example  rather  than  by  precept. 
Naturally  of  a  sunny  disposition,  his  very  look  and  word 
bespoke  the  inner  joy  that  none  but  the  humble  and  morti- 
fied know.  In  him  the  brethren  found  a  charitable  and 
sociable  confrere,  a  prudent  and  solicitous  superior.  Fr. 
Angelus  Mason,  who  was  a  novice  at  Douai  in  1631,  sums 
up  his  character  in  Certamen  Seraphicnm,  by  saying, 
' '  Father  Francis  Bel  was  a  true  son  of  the  seraphic  Father 
St.  Francis."^     He  further  tells  us  that  the  brethren  wept 

5.  Thaddeus,  p.  39.  6.  Mason,  p.  157. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  297 

when  their  beloved  guardian  departed  for  his  mission  in 
Scotland.  Like  Venerable  Paul  Heath,  Fr.  Francis  was  a 
man  of  prayer  and  recollection.  He,  too,  fostered  a  tender 
devotion  to  llary  the  Mother  of  God.  In  keeping  with  a 
vow  he  had  made,  he  recited  the  Little  Office  of  the  Blessed 
Virgin  every  day;  and  to  ensure  proper  attention,  he  was 
wont  to  say  it  in  the  seven  languages  with  which  he  was  con- 
versant, Latin,  Hebrew,  Greek,  Spanish,  French,  Flemish, 
and  English. 

Equally  fervent  was  his  love  of  prayer  and  mortification 
while  on  the  missions  in  England.  In  fact,  the  nine  last 
years  of  his  life  may  be  aptly  styled  one  long  preparation  for 
martyrdom.  "Francis  du  Mont,"  writes  De  Marsys,  "had 
thus  ample  scope  for  observing  the  martyr,  without  being 
seen,  and  he  has  told  me  that  he  often  saw  Father  Bel,  with 
extended  arms,  absorbed  in  prayer,  and  that  he  would 
remain  thus,  for  two  or  three  hours  together,  several  times  a 
day.  He  also  remarked  that  Father  Bel  was  abstemious  to 
the  verge  of  singularity.  ...  I  must  add,"  he  con- 
tinues, "that  Monsieur  Langlois,  Preacher  to  the  Count 
d'Harcourt,  who  had  the  honor  to  converse  with  the  martyr 
two  days  before  his  death,  and  to  whom  it  had  been  given  to 
sound  the  secret  depths  of  his  soul,  declares  that  he  recog- 
nized in  him  all  the  marks  of  perfect  sanctity,  of  a  mind  long 
detached  from  all  material  things.  I  pray  God  that  his 
example  and  his  prayers  may  sow  in  us  some  seeds  of  holi- 
ness."' Such  is  the  verdict  of  men  who  were  intimately 
acquainted  with  the  martyr. 

Early  in  1643,  Fr.  Joseph  Bergaigne,  then  archbishop 
of  Cambray,  was  directed  by  Pope  Urban  VIII  to  gather 
evidence  regarding  the  martyrdoms  that  had  recently  taken 
place  in  England.  On  the  committee  appointed  for  this 
purpose  by  the  Archbishop  was  Fr.  Francis.*  "It  is  proba- 
ble," says  Stone,  "that  the  attention  of  parliament  was 
directed  to  Father  Bel,  from  the  fact  of  his  name  appearing 

7.  Quoted  by  Stone,  pp.  206  seq. 

8.  Hope,  Franciscan  Martyrs  in  England,  pp.  192  seq. — Fr.  William 
AnclertoD  also  was  on  the  commission.     Thaddeus,  p.  191. 


298  FRANCISCANS  AND 

on  the  list  of  commissioners,  for  on  the  day  that  the  report 
was  published  he  was  himself  called  upon  to  take  his  place 
among  the  martyrs. '  "^  Only  a  few  months  before,  on  Octo- 
ber 16,  he  had  met  Venerable  John  Baptist  Bullaker  at 
Newgate  and,  we  may  suppose,  had  accompanied  him  to 
Tyburn,  so  that  now  he  was  in  a  position  to  give  evidence  in 
his  case.  Ever  since,  too,  the  thought  of  martyrdom,  of 
which  Fr,  John  Baptist  had  assured  him,  was  uppermost  in 
his  mind.  For  the  past  twenty  years  he  had  been  praying 
for  this  inestimable  grace  by  daily  reciting  the  thirty-fifth 
psalm.  Little,  however,  did  he  think  while  investigat- 
ing the  recent  martyrdoms,  that  his  own  was  so  close  at 
hand. 

It  was  on  Monday,  November  6,  that  the  saintly  mis- 
sionary hired  a  horse  at  Brigstock  in  Northamptonshire  and 
set  out  for  London,  where  -he  had  his  headquarters.  His 
appearance  the  next  day  at  Stevenage,  a  little  town  in  Hert- 
fordshire, roused  the  suspicions  of  the  garrison  stationed 
there.  Taking  him  for  a  royal  spy,  they  searched  him  and 
found  three  papers  written  in  Latin  and  Spanish.  Two  of 
these  were  of  a  devotional  character ;  while  the  third,  an 
indifferent  note  addressed  to  the  Spanish  ambassador,  re- 
vealed the  fact  that  he  was  a  Franciscan.^"  Unable  to 
decipher  the  writings,  the  soldiers  summoned  the  local  school- 
master, who,  to  shield  his  ignorance,  pompously  declared 
that  the  papers  contained  very  serious  and  dangerous  mat- 
ters.    On  this  verdict  the  friar  was  arrested. 

The  next  morning  he  was  taken  to  Hertford  and  placed 
in  the  custody  of  Marshal  Thomas  Jones.  During  the  day 
army  officials  and  prominent  citizens  visited  the  suspected 
priest.  In  the  course  of  the  conversation  a  drummer 
stepped  forward  and  asked  him  of  what  religion  he  was. 

9,  stone,  p.  183. 

10.  The  note  read  :  "Most  excellent  sir,  Father  Francis  Bel,  of  the 
Order  of  St.  Francis,  professed  at  Segovia,  declares  that  he  most  grate- 
fully accepts  your  offer  to  remain  in  your  house  :  but  he  humbly  requests 
not  to  be  bound  by  the  condition  so  destructive  to  his  calling,  that  he  should 
not  leave  the  house  on  behalf  of  his  neighbor's  welfare,  for  such  a  con- 
dition he  can  not  agree  to." 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  299 

*  *  I  am  a  Catholic, ' '  replied  the  friar. 

"A  Roman  Catholic?"  insisted  the  other. 

''Why,  I  told  you  I  was  an  Englishman.  How  then  can 
I  be  a  Roman  ?  As  to  the  Catholic  Church,  however,  there 
can  be  only  one  Catholic  Church,  of  which  I  am  a  member. 
This,  with  the  help  of  God,  I  will  profess  till  my  dying 
hour." 

"Dost  thou  believe,"  another  bystander  broke  in,  "that 
the  Pope  is  the  supreme  head  of  the  Catholic  Church?" 

"I  do,"  came  the  fearless  reply;  "neither  did  I  ever 
doubt  it." 

This  provoked  a  hot  disputation  between  the  friar  and 
his  enemies.  To  prove  their  heretical  tenets,  the  latter 
brought  several  bibles.  Finding  the  text  very  corrupt,  the 
man  of  God  severely  rebuked  his  hearers  for  doing  such  vio- 
lence to  the  word  of  God.  The  disputation  continued  for 
some  time,  when  finally  the  Puritans,  seeing  themselves 
worsted,  declared  that  in  religious  matters  no  certainty 
could  be  had.  At  this  blindness  and  obstinacy,  the  friar 
grew  warm  with  indignation. 

"To  call  every  religion  doubtful,"  he  contended,  "is  not 
the  way  to  attract  others  to  yours,  but  rather  to  confirm 
them  in  that  Church 's  doctrine  to  which  Christ  has  promised 
infallibility.  All  your  efforts  are  directed  to  this:  while 
declaring  all  religions  to  be  in  error,  you  attempt  to  draw 
me  from  that  which  can  not  err  to  that  which  needs  must 
err,  and  thus  you  deprive  me  of  what  I  possess  and  leave  me 
nothing.  In  fine,  you  deal  with  my  soul  as  you  have  dealt 
with  my  body,  which  you  have  robbed  of  all  its  clothes  and 
instead  have  fitted  out  in  rags.  Rest  assured,  outside  the 
Catholic  Church  there  is  no  salvation;  and  I  wish  you  all 
were  like  me,  excepting  my  bonds. ' ' 

Completely  baffled  by  this  boldness  and  sincerity,  the 
crowd  gradually  dispersed;  whereupon  the  friar  was  con- 
ducted before  the  civil  authorities.  On  delivering  his  writ- 
ings to  the  parliamentary  commissioner,  the  marshal  warned 
him  to  have  the  prisoner  carefully  guarded,  because  one  of 


300  FRANCISCANS  AND 

the  papers  contained  an  incantation  by  means  of  which  he 
could  escape  through  any  prison  bars. 

"Art  thou  come  from  abroad?"  asked  the  presiding 
officer,  turning  to  the  friar. 

"I  am,"  he  answered. 

"Hast  thou  received  holy  orders?" 

"That  is  considered  a  crime;  wherefore  no  one  will 
answer  such  a  question." 

"The  prisoner  is  mine,  by  right  of  my  office,"  fell  in 
the  marshal,  filled  with  rage.  "I  reserve  him  for  further 
investigation. ' ' 

With  this,  he  advanced  and  once  more  subjected  his 
victim  to  a  most  degrading  examination.  Finding  a  kej-  on 
his  person,  the  wretch  demanded  under  threat  of  severe 
torture  that  the  prisoner  reveal  the  whereabouts  of  the  lock 
to  which  the  key  belonged.  Perceiving  that  it  would  not  be 
to  the  detriment  of  his  Catholic  friends  and  benefactors,  Fr. 
Francis  replied  that  the  porter  of  the  Spanish  ambassador 
had  it. 

During  the  following  night,  which  the  friar  spent  in 
close  study,  his  keeper  robbed  him  of  all  his  clothes  so  that 
the  next  morning  he  was  forced  to  don  a  tattered  uniform 
given  him  by  one  of  the  soldiers.  Thus  scantily  clad  and 
with  his  hands  bound  behind  him,  he  was  placed  on  a  horse 
and  hastened  oif  to  London.  In  the  various  towns  through 
which  their  journey  led  them,  the  servant  of  God  became  the 
laughing-stock  of  the  people  who  gathered  on  the  street 
corners  to  hail  with  insults  and  abuses  this  latest  victim  of 
Puritan  intolerence.^^ 

When  they  arrived  in  London,  Marshal  Jones  confined 
his  prisoner  in  a  hotel  and  ordered  him  to  send  for  his  trunk. 
Fr.  Francis  complied,  fearing  a  refusal  might  inconvenience 
his  friends  and  benefactors.  When  the  trunk  arrived,  the 
marshal  took  possession  of  all  its  contents. 

Two  guards  now  conducted  the  friar  before  the  commis- 

11.  "Helpless  and  half  naked,"  the  friar  wrote  in  his  account,  "I  rode 
on  a  hired  horse,  all  too  great  a  parade,  however,  for  one  who  professes  to 
carry  the  cross  and  to  follow  Christ." — Mason,  p.  163. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  301 

sioners  of  parliament.  While  they  were  waiting  at  the  door 
of  the  courtroom,  the  man  of  God  was  rebuked  and  insulted 
by  the  passers-by.  At  last,  the  commissioners  were  ready  to 
receive  them.  After  the  preliminary  questions  regarding 
name,  birthplace  and  religion  had  been  answered,  Mr. 
Corbet,  one  of  the  commissioners,  began  to  ask  the  prisoner 
about  certain  persons  mentioned  in  the  papers  that  had  been 
taken  from  him. 

"Prithee,  question  me  not  about  any  third  person,"  the 
friar  rejoined,  "because  my  conscience  forbids  me  to  injure 
others."^" 

"Such  considerations  are  out  of  season,"  threw  in  Mr. 
Whitaker,  "when  the  public  weal  is  the  issue." 

"Is  this  thy  writing?"  they  then  demanded,  producing 
the  friar's  note  to  the  Spanish  ambassador. 

"It  is, "  came  the  ready  reply ;  ' ' but  it  is  only  an  imper- 
fect sketch  of  what  I  had  in  mind  to  write." 

"Art  thou,  as  the  writing  shows,  a  member  of  the  Order 
of  St.  Francis?" 

Here  the  friar  hesitated.^^ 

' '  Several  others, ' '  urged  his  enemies,  "have  been  brought 
before  us,  who  wisely  admitted  it. ' ' 

' '  I  am  a  poor  penitent  of  the  Order  of  St.  Francis ;  but 
it  is  becoming  for  everyone  to  do  penance. ' ' 

' '  Art  thou  a  priest  ? ' ' 

"That  question  should  not  be  put;  for,  if  I  say  yes,  I 
own  myself  guilty  of  a  crime;  if  I  say  no,  my  denial  will 
implicate  others." 

' '  Is  this  thy  breviary  ? ' ' 

"It  is ;  and  it  contains  many  pious  prayers  dictated  by 
the  Holy  Spirit." 

"Aye,  but  interspersed  with  idolatrous  ones  that  poison 
all  the  rest, ' '  broke  in  Whitaker. 

"Forsooth,  it  is  no  breviary  at  all,  but  a  missal,"  clam- 

12.  The  dialogue  form  is  ours,  based  on  Mason's  narrative. 

13.  He  feared  for  the  convenience  of  his  friends  in  the  city,  whom  he 
endeavored  to  shield  from  harm  throughout  his  trial. 


302  FRANCISCANS  AND 

ored  some  of  the  bystanders,  examining  the  book  from  all 
sides. 

Here  Fr.  Francis  explained  to  them  the  difference  be- 
tween a  Roman  breviary  and  a  Roman  missal.  In  the  mean- 
time, the  judges  agreed  on  the  sentence  to  be  passed.  The 
prisoner  had  admitted  being  a  Franciscan;  moreover,  sus- 
picions were  strong  that  he  was  also  a  priest.  For  the  pres- 
ent, therefore,  he  must  be  confined  in  Newgate. 

The  next  daj^  Fr.  Francis  received  a  letter  from  the 
provincial  urging  him  to  come  to  Douai  and  take  the  place 
of  Ven.  Paul  Heath.  In  reply,  the  man  of  God  penned  the 
following  note : 

Reverend  Father — I  received  your  behest  with  all  due  humility 
and  readiness  to  follow  it.  Some  twenty-four  hours  before  it  came 
to  my  notice,  I  had  already  begun  to  take  the  place  of  Fr.  Heath  ir, 
Newgate.  As  for  the  rest,  I  ask  your  prayers  that  I  may  persevere 
unto  the  end.  With  St.  Andrew,  I  likewise  entreat  all  Christians  not 
to  thwart  my  martyrdom. 

Your  poor  brother, 

Francis  Bel. 

To  the  letter  from  the  commissary  provincial,  which 
arrived  a  few  days  later  and  also  summoned  him  to  Douai,  he 
answered  that  he  would  obey  as  soon  as  the  present  impedi- 
ment, for  which  he  had  no  excuse,  would  be  removed ;  then 
he  playfully  explained  the  nature  of  this  impediment :  how 
he  had  been  arrested,  tried,  and  thrown  into  Newgate,  Ex- 
pressing his  desire  to  die  for  Christ,  he  at  the  same  time 
declared  his  willingness  to  forgo  this  privelege  if  such  were 
the  will  of  God.  After  asking  his  superior  to  pray  for  him, 
he  concluded  with  the  assurance  that,  were  he  to  escape  the 
death  sentence,  he  would  use  every  lawful  means  to  recover 
his  liberty  so  as  to  be  able  to  obey. 

On  December  7,  the  servant  of  God  was  summoned  to  the 
mayor's  bench.  His  indictment  having  been  read  aloud,  the 
judge  asked  him  what  he  had  to  offer  in  his  defence. 

"Where  are  my  accusers?"  demanded  the  friar. 

' '  Thou  shalt  face  them  to-morrow.  For  the  present,  de- 
clare whether  thou  art  guilty  or  not." 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  303 

"To  cross  the  sea,  receive  holy  orders,  and  return  hither, 
I  deem  no  crime.     Therefore,  I  plead  not  guilty. 

' '  Reply  to  the  question  ! ' '  snapped  the  judge.  ' '  What  is 
thy  answer  ? ' ' 

"The  same  that  I  already  gave  to  the  high  commis- 
sioners; I  have  no  other  to  give." 

' '  That  one  we  have ;  in  addition,  however,  we  now  de- 
mand an  answer  in  legal  form;  namely,  art  thou  guilty  or 
not  guilty?" 

"Very  well,  if  such  be  the  manner  of  your  procedure, 
then  I  maintain  that  I  am  not  guilty." 

"By  whom  wouldst  thou  be  judged?" 

This  question,  it  seems,  perplexed  the  friar ;  he  was  at  a 
loss  what  to  say. 

"By  God  and  thy  country!"  suggested  one  of  the  by- 
standers. 

' '  By  God  and  my  country, ' '  repeated  the  friar. 

With  this,  the  guards  approached  and  led  him  back  to 
Newgate. 

The  next  morning,  the  feast  of  the  Immaculate  Concep- 
tion, Fr.  Francis  was  again  placed  at  the  bar.  After  swear- 
ing in  the  twelve  jurymen,  the  judge  ordered  the  witnesses 
to  advance  their  accusations  against  the  prisoner.  Imme- 
diately, James  Wadsworth  and  three  other  notorious  apos- 
tates stepped  forth  and  testified  that  they  knew  the  prisoner 
to  be  a  priest.  One  of  them,  Thomas  Gage,  made  such  a 
botch  of  it  that  he  w^as  sharply  reproached  by  the  bench  and 
told  to  retire.  Another,  not  having  been  sufficiently  in- 
structed what  to  say,  had  little  evidence  to  offer.  At  last, 
when  the  witnesses  had  finished  their  wretched  testimony, 
the  judge  turned  to  the  prisoner. 

* '  What  hast  thou  to  say  in  reply  to  these  depositions  ? ' ' 
he  asked. 

"The  witnesses,"  boldly  retorted  the  friar,  "are  men  of 
ill  repute,  and  therefore  they  should  find  no  credence." 

"Well,  what  objections  hast  thou  to  present  against 
them?" 


304  FRANCISCANS  AND 

"All  are  apostates  from  the  Catholic  faith.  Now,  in  all 
justice,  men  who  have  broken  their  troth  with  God  can  not 
and  should  not  enjoy  the  confidence  of  their  fellow  men." 

"Thy  objection  is  without  weight,"  they  shouted. 
"Hast  thou  anything  to  propose  to  the  jury  in  thy 
defence?" 

' '  I  have  not ;  but  I  trust  they  are  Christians.  I  am  not 
a  priest  of  the  order  of  Levi,"  he  subjoined,  "according  to 
the  priesthood  of  Aaron ;  nor,  indeed,  would  it  be  wise  for 
one  called  by  God  to  the  priesthood  to  pass  by  the  fountain 
itself  and  drink  of  the  muddy  water." 

' '  Thou  speakest  mysteriously.  Hast  thou  anything  else 
to  say?" 

"Nothing;  I  refer  you  to  the  answers  I  gave  at  my  trial 
before  the  high  commissioners. ' ' 

Thereupon  a  copy  of  the  proceedings  was  presented  to 
him.  Having  read  it  through,  he  handed  it  back  without  a 
word  of  comment.  In  the  meantime,  the  jurymen  went  out 
for  consultation.  After  a  short  time,  they  returned  and 
declared  the  friar  guilty  of  the  charges  brought  against  him. 
On  hearing  this,  Fr.  Francis  thanked  the  jury,  declaring 
that  he  was  ready  to  die  for  his  faith  and  profession.  But 
sentence  of  death  was  not  immediately  passed.  •  The  judges, 
overawed  by  the  noble  and  fearless  bearing  of  the  martyr, 
still  hoped  that  in  the  end  he  would  relent.  Hence  they  gave 
orders  that  he  be  led  back  to  prison,  where  he  would  have 
time  to  reflect  on  what  was  in  store  for  him. 

"Mr.  Bel,"  said  one  of  the  judges,  "you  will  be  cut  open 
while  you  are  still  alive,  and  with  your  own  eyes  you  will  see 
your  entrails  burnt  before  your  face ;  wherefore  we  beseech 
you  to  abjure  the  Roman  Church,  or  at  least  the  priesthood, 
so  as  to  avoid  this  disgraceful  and  cruel  punishment. ' ' 

"You  can  condemn  me,"  retorted  the  man  of  God,  "to 
a  light  and  temporal  punishment;  but  the  Protector  and 
Avenger  of  the  innocent  can  condemn  you  to  a  punishment 
which  shall  last  eternally. '  '^* 

14.  This  incident  is  taken  from  Hope,  p.  206. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  305 

That  same  afternoon  he  was  again  cited  to  court  to  hear 
his  sentence.  Although  he  realized  that  he  would  be  con- 
demned to  death,  his  heart  was  filled  with  inexpressible  joy. 

' '  My  accusers, ' '  he  said,  ' '  have  borne  witness  against  me ; 
the  twelve  jurymen  have  pronounced  me  guilty.  Most 
heartily  I  thank  them ;  for  with  greatest  readiness  and  joy 
I  will  die  with  Christ  and  his  Apostles  and  Martyrs,  inas- 
much as  their  cause  is  my  own.  But  since  the  matter  on 
which  I  intend  to  speak  is  of  equal  and  even  greater  impor- 
tance than  that  of  the  prophets  of  old,  I  will  invoke,  as  they 
did,  heaven  and  earth.  Be  astonished,  ye  heavens,  and  be 
confounded,  0  earth  !  to  behold  a  Christian  State,  professing 
Christ  and  his  Gospel  and  yet  condemning  for  treason  the 
priesthood  which  was  founded  by  Christ  and  which  rests  on 
the  Gospel ;  the  priesthood,  I  say,  which  upholds  the  Gospel 
and  which  in  turn  is  upheld  by  the  Gospel.  For  this  reason 
I  asked  this  morning,  whether  the  jurymen  were  Christians ; 
meaning  that  Cliristians  would  perhaps  condemn  priests  of 
the  order  of  Aaron  but  not  of  the  order  of  Christ,  and  that 
Jews  might  condemn  priests  of  Christ  but  not  priests  of 
Levi.  What  you  then  called  mystical  I  shall  now  explain. 
If  anyone  has  from  God  a  vocation  to  the  priesthood,  let  him 
seek  it  there  where  the  succession  is  indisputably  certain 
and  w^here  it  has  never  been  interrupted  since  the  time  of 
Christ,  namely  in  Rome;  not  there,  however,  whe.e  it  is 
doubtful  and  unquestionably  defective,  as  is  the  case  with 
the  Protestants;  for  certain  it  is  that  in  the  Protestant 
Church  there  is  no  true  priesthood. ' ' 

Here  the  clerk  interposed: 

""We  are  to  comply  with  the  laws  under  which  we  were 
born  and  under  which,  you  confessed,  you,  too,  have  been 
bom." 

"Quite  correct,  I  admit,"  replied  the  friar;  "forsooth, 
had  I  been  born  among  pagans  and  infidels,  I  should  submit 
to  their  laws  in  so  far  as  they  were  not  opposed  to  the  law 
of  God.  Know  ye,  therefore,  that  they  who  first  enacted 
these  laws,  have  long  ago  and  irrevocably  obtained  what  they 


306  FRANCISCANS  AND 

deserved.  Wherefore,  let  those  be  prudently  and  betimes 
on  their  guard  and  look  to  their  consciences  who  are  now 
charged  or  will  yet  be  charged  with  the  office  of  executing 
these  laws. ' ' 

' '  Is  there  anything  else  you  would  like  to  say  ? ' '  queried 
the  judge  with  cynic  indifference. 

"I  have  no  more  to  say,"  returned  the  martj^r.  "I  re- 
sign myself  into  your  hands." 

At  a  sign  from  the  judge,  the  guards  approached  and 
shackled  the  friar's  hands,  a  ceremony  that  was  generally 
dispensed  with  in  the  case  of  priests.  Then  the  judge  arose 
and  solemnly  pronounced  sentence  of  death.  Fr.  Francis 
was  overjoyed  when  he  heard  it  and  with  a  loud  voice  in- 
toned the  Te  Deum.  Before  leaving  the  courtroom,  he 
turned  to  the  judges  and  thanked  them,  The.y  in  turn  re- 
minded him  of  the  terrible  torments  and  death  his  obstinacy 
was  preparing  for  him. 

"I  beseech  God,"  said  the  friar  with  trembling  voice, 
"to  grant  through  his  infinite  mercy  that  not  greater  tor- 
ments befall  you  in  the  next  world  than  those  that  await  me 
in  this." 

As  usual,  Catholics  as  well  as  Protestants  flocked  to  New- 
gate to  see  the  condemned  priest  during  the  two  daj^s  pre- 
ceding his  execution.  For  all  the  saintly  friar  had  a  word 
of  comfort  or  warning,  as  the  case  demanded.  Many  were 
moved  to  tears  that  one  so  gentle  and  refined  in  his  manners 
should  be  condemned  to  a  death  so  painful  and  revolting. 
But  the  valiant  hero  only  rejoiced  in  the  anticipation  of  the 
eternal  reward  that  was  to  follow. 

"I  am  astonished,"  he  said  repeatedly  to  his  visitors, 
"that  God  should  have  been  pleased  to  honor  me  with  the 
crown  of  martyrdom,  and  that  he  should  have  chosen  me,  a 
miserable  being,  rather  than  the  many  holy  men  now  in 
England,  who  are  aspiring  to  this  happiness."^' 

On  Sunday  morning,  he  celebrated  Mass  and  adminis- 
tered Holy  Communion  to  a  number  of  Catholics.     During 

15.  Hope,  p.  209. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  307 

the  day,  four  Protestant  ministers  came  at  the  behest  of 
parliament  to  dispute  with  the  martyr  on  doctrinal  matters. 
But  they  were  outwitted  at  every  turn  and  in  the  end  were 
compelled  to  beat  an  inglorious  retreat,  much  to  the  satis- 
faction of  the  b^'standers.  Ever  since  sentence  of  death  had 
been  pronounced,  the  Spanish  and  the  French  ambassadors 
were  taking  steps  for  his  acquittal.  When  Fr.  Francis 
heard  of  it,  however,  he  became  sad  and  even  reproached  the 
prior  of  St.  Magdalen,  when  the  latter  told  him  that  they 
were  trying  to  obtain  grace  for  him. 

' '  Alas !  dost  thou  deem  it  a  grace, ' '  he  said, ' '  to  be  robbed 
of  the  crown  I  have  desired  so  long  ?  Till  now,  I  considered 
thee  my  friend ;  but,  let  me  tell  thee,  if  thou  persist  in  thy 
design,  I  shall  no  longer  regard  thee  as  my  friend,  but  as  my 
greatest  enemy.  I  beseech  thee,  do  not  prevent  my  martyr- 
dom. I  conjure  thee,  do  not  oppose  my  death  which  is 
my  greatest  happiness;  whatever  steps  thou  takest,  I  shall 
invoke  the  most  holy  Mother  of  God  and  St.  Andrew  that 
no  one  in  the  end  may  deprive  me  of  the  cross  which  I  see 
before  me." 

When,  at  last,  night  set  in,  the  man  of  God  dismissed  his 
visitors,  saying  it  was  his  wish  to  be  left  alone  the  remaining 
few  hours  of  his  life,  so  as  to  prepare  himself  for  the  sacrifice 
he  was  to  offer  on  the  morrow.  The  entire  night  he  spent  in 
prayer  and  meditation.  Early  next  morning  he  rose  to  say 
Mass  for  the  last  time  and  to  give  Holy  Communion  to  sev- 
eral Catholics.  He  was  still  rapt  in  prayer,  when  the  guards 
entered  his  cell  and  told  him  that  his  hour  had  come. 
Recommending  himself  to  the  Most  High,  he  arose  and  fol- 
lowed them  to  the  street.  Without  delay,  they  fastened  him 
to  the  hurdle  and  then  whipping  up  the  four  horses  dashed 
off  to  Tyburn  followed  by  a  concourse  of  people. 

Arriving  at  the  place  of  execution,  the  holy  man  was 
transported  with  joy. 

* '  Now  I  find  myself  in  the  place, ' '  he  exclaimed,  ' '  which 
blessed  Thomas  Bullaker  predicted  to  me  ! " 

At  the  command  of  the  sheriff,  he  ascended  the  cart  and, 


308  FRANCISCANS  AND 

as  was  customary,  addressed  the  people  who  had  assembled 
in  great  numbers  to  witness  the  bloody  spectacle. 

"Listen,  my  dearest  countrymen!  If  you  wish  to  be 
freed  of  your  miseries,  it  is  necessary  that  you  first  put  an 
end  to  your  sins.  For,  without  doubt,  your  great  sins  are 
the  cause  of  your  present  calamities  and  misfortunes.  Above 
all,  however,  arise  from  heresy  in  which  you  are  engrossed 
these  many  years.  For  through  heresy,  I  grieve  to  say,  you 
are  separated  like  decayed  members  from  the  body  of  Christ, 
or  are  cut  like  dead  branches  from  the  tre^  of  the  Church. 
If  you  continue  to  love  the  darkness  more  than  the  light, 
daily  hardships  will  be  your  share.  Certain  it  is,  many 
tribulations  and  calamities  will  come  upon  this  city  of  Lon- 
don and  upon  the  entire  kingdom  of  England,  if  they  do  not 
betimes  leave  off  persecuting  and  harassing  the  priests  and 
the  Catholic  people.  Consider,  I  beseech  you,  and  see  the 
afflictions  with  which  God  even  now  visibly  begins  to  punish 
you,  and  know  for  certain  that  all  these  punishments  are  signs 
of  his  love  and  the  most  evident  assurance  that  he  will  not 
destroy  you  unless  forced  to  do  so.  All  these  chastisements, 
wars,  and  misfortunes  he  inflicts  upon  you,  so  as  in  time  to 
gather  in  the  shipwrecked  into  the  harbor  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  Do  not,  therefore^  shamefully  abuse  his  goodness 
and  mercy ;  do  not  with  violence,  as  it  were,  extort  your  per- 
dition by  provoking  divine  justice,^**  I  am  brought  here  to 
suffer  death,  but  I  wish  before  I  suffer  to  tell  you  the  cause. 
I  am  not  even  accused  of  any  crime,  but  am  condemned  solely 
for  being  a  priest  of  the  Catholic  Church.  Were  I  a  pagan 
priest,  I  should  not  wonder  at  being  put  to  death  in  a  Chris- 
tian country;  but  that  a  Catholic  priest  should  be  put  to 
death  by  those  who  profess  to  be  Christians  and  to  follow 
Jesus  Christ  and  his  Gospel,  ought  to  surprise  every  rea- 
sonable person.  It  is  said  that  the  laws  demand  it.  But 
these  laws  were  iniquitously  made  and  now  they  are  being 
iniquitously  executed.     I  declare  before  you  all  in  the  sight 

16.  So  far  Mason  ;  the  rest  of  the  address  and  attending  incidents  are 
taken  from  Hope,  pp.  212  seq. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  309 

of  God  and  of  his  Son  Jesus  Christ  who  will  judge  us,  and  I 
sign  my  declaration  with  my  blood,  that  I  die  a  true  member 
of  the  Catholic  Church." 

"You  mean  to  say  the  Roman  Church,"  interrupted  a 
Protestant. 

"If  you  wish  me  thus  to  distinguish  it,"  replied  the 
martyr,  "with  all  my  heart  I  distinguish  it  from  every 
Protestant  Church  and  every  sort  of  heresy,  and  call  it 
the  Roman  Church.  My  parents  lived  and  died  in 
this  religion.  They  brought  me  up  in  this  faith,  and  if  I 
had  a  longer  life  to  spend  I  would  profess  it  to  my  last 
moment,  even  though  I  had  to  suffer  a  thousand  deaths  and 
the  greatest  imaginable  torments. ' ' 

' '  Mr.  Bel, ' '  broke  in  the  sheriff,  ' '  we  can  not  let  you  de- 
claim any  longer  against  our  laws  and  give  a  wrong  impres- 
sion to  the  people.  You  know  that  you  are  going  to  die  for 
having  seduced  the  king's  subjects." 

* '  I  see, ' '  answered  the  martyr,  ' '  a  great  multitude  before 
me.  This  is  why  I  wish  to  do  them  a  good  office  and  draw 
them  back  to  the  right  way.  They  possess  a  part  of  the 
Catholic  faith.  They  believe  the  incarnation  of  our  Lord, 
his  passion,  and  his  resurrection.  But  this  is  not  enough, 
and  therefore  I  wish  to  declare  to  them  the  whole  truth  for 
the  good  of  their  souls." 

"Help  yourself!  help  yourself!"  shouted  some  in  the 
crowd. 

' '  Those  that  are  the  victims  of  a  false  religion, ' '  the  man 
of  God  quietly  continued,  "will  not  listen  to  the  truth.  But 
I  protest  to  you  that  the  Protestant  religion  is  not  of  divine 
faith." 

Here  the  sheriff  interposed,  forbidding  the  martyr  to  say 
any  more  against  the  Protestant  religion.  Whereupon,  the 
latter  with  a  look  of  sorrow  and  pity  exclaimed : 

' '  I  forgive  with  my  whole  heart  all  who  have  contributed 
to  my  death,  and  I  die  joyfully  for  so  glorious  a  cause. ' ' 

A  thief  who  also  was  to  be  executed  felt  such  compunc- 
tion at  these  words  that  he  solemnly  abjured  the  Anglican 


310  FRANCISCANS  AND 

heresy  and  was  absolved  by  the  martyr.  Finally,  orders 
were  given  to  carry  out  the  sentence.  While  the  cart  was 
drawn  from  under  him,  the  martyr  raised  his  hands  and 
received  the  last  absolution  from  the  prior  of  St.  Magdalen. 
He  had  hung  only  a  few  seconds  when  the  executioner  cut 
him  down.  On  removing  his  secular  dress,  they  found  that 
beneath  it  he  wore  the  Franciscan  habit  and  cord.  At  this 
sight  the  crowd  was  filled  with  admiration. 

"What  sort  of  men  are  these,"  they  murmured,  "who 
thus  despise  earthly  comforts?" 

Having  finished  their  bloody  work  on  the  sacred  corpse, 
the  executioners  exposed  the  quarters  on  the  four  gates  of 
the  city.  Mason  concludes  his  life  sketch  of  Ven.  Francis 
Bel  by  remarking  that  several  miracles  were  thought  to  have 
been  wrought  through  his  intercession.  Like  his  fellow 
friars  who  died  for  their  faith  and  profession  at  this  time, 
he,  too,  is  now  on  the  official  list  for  eventual  beatification.^^ 

17.  See  Acta  Minorum,  Vol.  VI  (1887),  p.  49  seq.,  and  also  Ortolanl, 
De  Causis  Beatorum  et  Servorum  Dei  Ordinis  Minorum,  p.  14. 


CHAPTER  VII 

VENERABLE  MARTIN  WOODCOCK,  0.  F.  M. 

His  Protestant  father  and  Catholic  mother— He  embraces 
the  old  faith — Student  at  Saint-Omer  and  at  Rome — 
Joins  the  Capuchins  in  Paris— Dismissed  from  the  Order 
— Serious  doubts  regarding  his  vocation — Received  into 
the  Franciscan  Order  at  Douai — Ordained  priest — Longs 
to  joint  the  missionaries  in  England — Permission  at  last 
granted — Arrested  on  arriving  in  England — Sufferings 
in  prison — Before  the  judges — Sentenced  to  death  for 
being  a  priest — Martyrdom. 

The  last  Franciscan  to  die  for  the  faith  during  the  Puri- 
tan Revolution  was  Venerable  Martin  Woodcock.^  Before, 
as  well  as  after,  his  entrance  into  the  Franciscan  Order,  his 
life  was  one  long  series  of  mental  and  bodily  affliction,  which 
he  bore  with  heroic  resignation  to  the  will  of  Him  whose 
judgments  are  incomprehensible  and  whose  ways  are  un- 
searchable. ' '  In  the  eyes  of  the  world, ' '  Hope  thoughtfully 
observes,  "his  life  was  a  failure,  for  disappointment  seemed 
ever  to  attend  all  his  efforts  in  God's  service.  But  in  God's 
eyes  his  constant  humiliations  were  the  fitting  preparation 
for  the  glorious  crown  which  was  predestined  to  him  rather 
than  to  those  of  his  brethren  who  might  be  deemed  to  have 
more  worthily  deserved  it. '  '^ 

Fr.  Woodcock  was  a  native  of  Lancashire.  He  saw  the 
light  of  day  in  1603  at  Leyland,  and  in  baptism  received  the 
name  John.  His  father,  Thomas  Woodcock,  was  a  Protes- 
tant, while  his  mother  Dorothy,  born  of  a  good  Catholic 
family  named  Anderton,   was   known   for  her  piety  and 

1.  For  the  present  sketch,  unless  otherwise  stated,  we  have  drawn 
chiefly  from  Mason,  Certamen  Seraphicum,  pp.  183-208. 

2.  Hope,  Franciscan  Martyrs  in  England,  p.  216. 

311 


312 


FRANCISCANS  AND 


Venerable  Martin  Woodcock,  0.  F.  M. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  313 

staunch  adherence  to  the  old  faith.  Unfortunately,  all  we 
know  regarding  John 's  boyhood  and  youth  is  the  fact  that, 
possibly  to  wrest  her  son  from  the  influence  of  Protestant 
environment  at  home,  his  mother  entrusted  him  at  an  early 
age  to  the  care  of  his  grandfather.  With  him  he  stayed  till 
his  twentieth  year,  when  he  abjured  Protestantism  and  em- 
braced the  Catholic  faith.  In  consequence,  as  he  had  fore- 
seen, his  Protestant  father  treated  him  very  cruelly.  But  he 
esteemed  the  treasure  of  his  faith  higher  than  earthly  com- 
forts. Patiently  he  bore  his  father's  taunts  for  almost  two 
years.  Then  having  come  of  age,  he  made  shift  to  follow 
what  he  sincerely  believed  to  be  a  summons  from  above  to 
the  holy  priesthood.  With  a  number  of  young  men  he  ac- 
companied F.  Edward  Squire,  S.  J.,  to  the  continent  and 
soon  found  himself  within  the  halls  of  the  Jesuit  College  at 
Saint-Omer.  After  a  year  of  study,  during  which  he  com- 
pleted his  classical  training,  he  departed  for  the  English 
College  in  Rome,  where  he  intended  to  take  up  philosophy 
and  theology.^ 

All  this  time,  the  young  convert  felt  in  his  heart  an 
earnest  desire  to  enter  some  religious  Order.  Finally,  after 
six  months  of  prayer  and  deliberation,  he  decided  to  join 
the  Capuchins.  The  procurator  general  of  the  Order,  to 
whom  he  had  gone  for  advice,  mistook  the  Capuchins  at  Fau- 
bourg St.  Jacques  in  Paris  for  an  English  community.  Ac- 
cordingly, he  told  John  to  enter  the  Order  there.  The 
young  man  immediately  set  out  for  the  French  metropolis, 
and  on  May  16,  1630,  received  the  Capuchin  habit.  Soon, 
however,  a  storm  of  bitter  trials  was  to  dispel  the  joy  and 
peace  of  his  heart.  He  had  been  with  the  Capuchins  only 
three  months,  when  the  superiors  found  it  necessary  to 
dismiss  him  from  the  Order.  The  novice  was  inconsolable 
when  he  heard  of  it.  So  ardent  was  his  devotion  to  the  life 
he  had  embraced  that  only  by  sheer  force,  as  Mason  tells  us, 
could  he  be  deprived  of  the  lowly  garb  of  St.  Francis. 

In  a  letter  to  a  friend,  the  unhappy  young  man  explained 

3.  Stone,  Faithful  Unto  Death,  p.  212. 


314  FRANCISCANS  AND 

the  reasons  why  the  friars  had  sent  him  away.*  His  friends 
in  England,  and  even  his  Catholic  mother,  had  neglected  to 
answer  the  letters  which  had  been  directed  to  them  for  in- 
formation regarding  his  antecedents.  Furthermore,  his 
superiors  could  not  discover  what  had  prevailed  on  him  to 
join  their  Order  in  Paris  rather  than  in  Rome;  it  seemed 
incredible  to  them  that  the  procurator  general  should  have 
mistaken  their  friary  for  a  community  of  English  Capu- 
chins. Moreover,  from  letters  received  through  the  Jesuits 
in  Rome,  they  learned  that  the  novice's  mother,  elder 
brother,  and  other  relatives  strongly  discountenanced  his 
entering  a  religious  Order,  which  fact  the  superiors  antici- 
pated would  in  the  end  create  difficulties  for  him  as  well  as 
for  the  Order.  Again,  not  only  was  the  young  man  of 
Protestant  extraction,  but  he  had  also  been  reared  among 
Protestants.  Then,  his  precarious  health  evidently  mili- 
tated against  vowing  a  life  of  seclusion  and  penance. 
Finally,  there  was  little  hope  of  his  ever  becoming  con- 
versant with  the  French  tongue,  while  the  decided  predilec- 
tion he  manifested  for  the  English  Jesuits  who  had  lately 
visited  him  caused  considerable  comment.  Therefore, 
"without  any  fault  of  his  own,"  as  Mason  concludes,  John 
Woodcock  was  compelled  to  leave  the  Order.  ' '  God  made  use 
of  the  injustice  of  men,"  Stone  remarks,  "to  work  out  his 
own  design,  for  if  Father  Woodcock  had  remained  with  the 
Capuchins,  he  could  never  have  attained  the  martyr's  crown, 
they  having  at  that  time  no  mission  in  England,  so  that  what 
was  to  him  a  source  of  grief  and  suffering  at  first,  was  ulti- 
mately the  very  means  by  which  he  was  to  ensure  his  happi- 
ness and  reward."^ 

With  a  heavy  heart,  the  young  man  left  the  quiet  pre- 
cincts of  the  convent  where  he  had  only  begun  to  taste  of 
the  peace  and  consolation  for  which  his  spirit  longed. 
Trusting  in  God  for  strength  and  guidance,  he  proceeded  at 
once  to  Douai  and  applied  for  admission  among  the  English 

4.  Mason  brings  a  Latin  version  of  this  letter,  which  at  his  time  was 
preserved  in  the  provincial  archives  at  Douai. 

5.  Stone,  p.  214. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  315 

Franciscans.     At  the  same  time,  however,  serious  doubts 
regarding   his   true   vocation   began   to   harrow   his   soul. 
Would  not  his  father's  being  a  Protestant  debar  him  also 
from  becoming  a  Franciscan  ?     Had  he  not  better  complete 
his  studies,  receive  ordination,  and  secure  a  living  ?     What 
if  the  Franciscans  at  St.  Bonaventure  's  also  turned  him  off  ? 
How,  in  that  event,  could  he  earn  a  livelihood,  deprived  as 
he  was  of  his  inheritance  ?     While  pondering  what  course  to 
pursue,  it  suddenly  occurred  to  him  how,  when  he  left  Rome 
for  Paris,  Fr.  Luke  Wadding,*'  the  guardian  of  St.  Isidore's, 
had  drawn  his  attention  to  all  these  predicaments  and  had 
promised  to  receive  him  into  the  Irish  College  of  Francis- 
cans.    It  was  at  this  juncture  that  the  troubled  student  made 
the  mistake  of  his  life,  as  he  himself  later  confessed.     With 
more  zeal  than  forethought,  he  withdrew  his  application  to 
the  friars  at  Douai  and  returned  to  Rome.     But  the  end  of 
his  trials  had  not  yet  come.     For  some  reason  or  other,  he 
was  not  admitted  among  the  Irish  Franciscans,  and  again 
his  heart  became  a  prey  to  doubts  and  fears.     To  join  the 
Order  of  St.  Francis  was  his  one  and  only  desire.     With 
deep  regret  he  thought  of  the  friars  at  Douai.     Had  he  only 
joined  them  instead  of  applying  to  their  Irish  brethren  in 
Rome.     To  be  received  into  their  midst  now  was  more  than 
he  could  reasonably  hope  or  ask  for.     "Thus,"  as  Mason 
says,  "he  was  tossed  about  on  all  sides  and  found  rest  no- 
where, until,  after  escaping  from  many  dangers,  and  over- 
coming many  difficulties,  he  fell  back  upon  his  original  de- 
sign, and  returned  to  the  place  which  in  the  first  instance 
had  been  designated  for  him  by  God. '  '^ 

A  natural  sense  of  shame  forbade  him  to  appear  person- 
ally at  the  convent  of  St.  Bonaventure,  and  he  solicited  by 
letter^  the  aid  of  his  friend  Fr.  William  Anderton,^  who  was 
then  a  member  of  the  community.     This  letter  breathes  a 

6.  The  famous  historian  of  the  Franciscan  Order. 

7.  Mason,  p.  197. 

8.  For  a  Latin  version  of  this  letter  see  Mason,  p.  197. 

9.  Perhaps  Fr.  Martin  was  related  to  him ;  his  mother's  name,  we 
know,  was  Anderton. 


316  FRANCISCANS  AND 

spirit  of  rare  humility,  winning  sincerity,  deep  faith,  and 
religious  fervor.  In  it  he  begs  his  friend  to  plead  his  cause 
with  the  superiors  of  the  province,  to  declare  in  his  stead 
that  "through  some  weakness  of  body  and  soul,  and  through 
a  fear  not  altogether  reprehensible, ' '  he  had  justly  incurred 
their  distrust  and  displeasure;  that  now,  however,  having 
regained  his  mental  and  bodily  strength,  he  was  better  dis- 
posed and  earnestly  desired  "to  heed  his  first  call  rather 
than  to  expose  himself  any  longer  to  the  surging  billows  of 
this  world  and  to  the  furious  onslaughts  of  implacable  ene- 
mies ;  wherefore,  my  dear  Father  William,"  he  pleaded,  "by 
our  old  friendship  which  in  this  misfortune  above  all  inter- 
cedes for  me  with  you ;  yes,  by  the  tender  love  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  I  pray  that  pity  on  my  miserable  condition 
may  move  you  successfully  to  endeavor  to  obtain  favor  and 
pardon  for  me.  This  is  my  desire,  this  I  ask,  this  I  wait  for, 
for  this  I  sigh  and  yearn,  and  I  shall  await  its  accomplish- 
ment solely  out  of  pure  love  of  God  and  of  his  glory.  Fare- 
well. That  which  formerly  you  saw  me  long  for  lightly, 
you  will  strive  now,  for  love  of  Christ,  to  secure  for  me  more 
efficaciously.  This  will  be  my  happiness;  nothing  else  will 
ever  cause  me  greater  joy.     Farewell. ' ' 

The  superiors  at  St.  Bonaventure  's  were  deeply  touched 
when  they  read  this  humble  and  sincere  appeal.  Evidently, 
it  was  the  outburst  of  a  soul  that  the  All- Wise  was  leading 
heavenward  through  the  perilous  gloom  of  sorrow  and  afflic- 
tion ;  and  in  their  little  community,  perhaps,  that  tried  soul 
was  predestined  at  last  to  find  spiritual  peace  and  consola- 
tion. Thus  the  friars  reasoned,  and  eager  to  further  the 
designs  of  Providence,  they  informed  the  young  man  that  he 
might  come  and  join  their  ranks.  Without  delay,  John 
Woodcock  repaired  to  St.  Bonaventure 's,  where  Venerable 
Paul  Heath,  who  at  the  time  was  vicar  of  the  friary,  vested 
him  with  the  Franciscan  habit  and  gave  him  the  name  Fr. 
Martin  of  St.  Felix. 

Humility  had  opened  for  him  the  portals  of  the  friary ; 
and  it  was  this  same  virtue  that  chiefly  characterized  his 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  317 

later  career.  Fr.  Martin  soon  won  the  esteem  and  confi- 
dence of  his  superiors  by  his  love  of  prayer  and  recollection 
and  by  the  spirit  of  ready  submission  which  he  manifested 
on  all  occasions.  Though  of  a  weak  constitution,  he  ate  very 
sparingly  and  shortened  his  hours  of  sleep  to  satisfy  his 
thirst  for  prayer.  In  the  discharge  of  choir  duty,  he  edified 
all  by  his  promptness  and  devotion.  Mason,  who  had  occa- 
sion to  observe  him  during  the  novitiate,  assures  us  that  Fr. 
Martin  outstripped  all  his  fellow  novices  in  strict  observance 
of  the  Rule  and  of  other,  even  the  slightest,  disciplinary  reg- 
ulations. In  short,  so  fully  did  he  vindicate  the  hopes  of  his 
superiors  and  confreres,  that  after  the  year  of  probation  he 
was  admitted  by  unanimous  consent  to  holy  profession.  He 
pronounced  the  vows  in  the  hands  of  the  guardian  Venerable 
Francis  Bel.  Thus,  by  a  singular  coincidence  Fr.  Martin 
of  St.  Felix  was  vested  and  professed  by  two  Franciscans 
who,  like  himself,  were  destined  one  day  to  shed  their  blood 
in  defence  of  their  holy  faith  and  profession. 

About  two  years  after  his  profession,  Fr.  Martin  was 
ordained  priest,  although  he  had  not  yet  finished  the  usual 
course  of  studies.  His  health  was  very  much  impaired,  and 
it  was  probably  this  circumstance  together  with  his  age, — 
he  was  now  past  thirty — that  induced  the  provincial  to  have 
him  receive  ordination.  Apparently,  for  the  next  three 
years,  till  1637,  he  continued  to  study  theology.  "Where- 
upon he  was  empowered  to  hear  confessions  and  to  preach 
and  was  approved  for  the  mission  in  England.  His  first 
appointment  was  to  Nieuport  as  confessor  and  spiritual 
adviser  of  the  Franciscan  Sisters  residing  in  that  place.^° 
In  1640,  the  provincial  chapter,  which  was  held  in  London 
on  April  19,  appointed  him  chaplain  and  confessor  to  a  cer- 
tain Mr.  Sheldon  at  Arras.  But  he  lived  with  this  gentle- 
man only  a  short  time,  when  his  health  broke  down  com- 
pletely, owing  to  the  austere  life  he  had  been  leading  and 
to  the  disinterested  zeal  with  which  he  had  discharged  his 
priestly  duties.     The  physicians  declared  his  ailment  very 

10.  Hope,  p.  218. 


318  FRANCISCANS  AND 

serious;  wherefore,  the  superiors  recalled  him  to  Douai. 
Resigning  himself  entirely  to  the  will  of  God,  the  saintly 
priest  returned  to  St.  Bonaventure  's  and,  despite  his  physi- 
cal debility,  again  took  part  in  all  the  penitential  exercises 
of  the  community. 

Since  his  elevation  to  the  priesthood,  and  especially  since 
the  renewal  of  anti-Catholic  hostility  in  England,  Fr.  Martin 
had  hoped  and  prayed  for  the  day  when  he  should  be  allowed 
to  join  his  brethren  on  the  missions.  But  his  health  had 
grown  from  bad  to  worse,  so  that  he  finally  despaired  of  ever 
obtaining  the  necessary  permission.  Mingled  feelings  of  joy 
and  sorrow  prevailed  in  the  community  at  Douai  when  in 
the  spring  of  1643  the  friars  were  informed  that  Venerable 
Paul  Heath  had  won  the  martyr 's  crown.  On  Trinity  Sun- 
day they  held  a  solemn  service  of  thanksgiving.  No  one 
was  more  impressed  by  the  sermon  which  a  Capuchin 
preached  on  the  occasion  than  Fr.  Martin.  To  lay  down  his 
life  for  Christ  again  became  the  ever  recurring  burden  of  his 
thoughts  and  prayers.  Several  times  he  wrote  to  the  pro- 
vincial in  England,  Fr.  George  Perrot,  asking  leave  to  come 
to  the  missions.  But  for  some  reason  or  other  his  letters 
remained  unanswered. 

Meanwhile,  the  state  of  his  health  had  become  so  alarm- 
ing that  the  superiors  ordered  him  to  take  the  waters  at  Spa. 
It  was  here  that  he  met  Fr.  Peter  Marchant,  the  Belgian 
commissary  general.  With  childlike  confidence  he  told  him 
how,  ever  since  the  glorious  death  of  Fr.  Heath,  he  had  been 
yearning  to  join  the  missions.  The  commissary  in  turn  bade 
him  apply  to  his  immediate  superior,  promising  at  the  same 
time  to  use  his  influence  in  securing  the  necessary  permis- 
sion. Accordingly,  the  servant  of  God  addressed  the  follow- 
ing letter^^  to  Fr.  Angelus  Mason,  the  provincial  commis- 
sary: 

Keverend  Father: 

Since  Trinity  Sunday,  which  I  doubt  not  your  Reverence  remem- 
bers, and  previously,  I  have  -nritten  three  consecutive  letters  to  our 

11.  For  a  copy  of  this  letter  see  Mason,  p.  201. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  319 

Eeverend  Father  Provincial  in  England,  asking  for  permission  to 
return  thither,  etc.  Recently,  I  also  wrote  to  the  commissary  general. 
But  noAV  after  speaking  to  him  personally,  I  have  obtained  in  writing 
his  free  consent  to  my  desire,  provided  it  meets  your  approval,  as  he 
pointed  out  to  me.  He  affixed  his  seal  to  it  and  returned  it  to  me 
open,  that  I  might  read  and  sign  it  when  I  saw  fit.  This  I  did  on  my 
arrival  here  yesterday  evening.  After  due  consideration,  however,  I 
I  refrain  from  sending  it  to  you,  for  fear  it  may  be  lost  on  the  way, 
which  would  necessitate  my  beginning  the  whole  matter  anew.  Trust- 
ing you  will  take  me  at  my  word,  especially  in  an  affair  of  this  kind,  in 
which  I  could  not  lie,  I  judged  it  better  to  inform  you  of  it  by  these 
simple  lines  and  to  request  your  consent  with  return  mail.  By  the 
tender  love  of  the  most  sweet  Jesus,  I  entreat  you  not  to  delay  sending 
it.  Indeed,  I  might  propose  to  your  Eeverence  the  same  urgent  rea- 
sons which  I  have  twice  already  laid  before  the  above-mentioned  supe- 
riors, though  perhaps  in  a  style  little  adequate  to  the  subject.  But  I 
hope  that  this  will  not  be  necessary.  Your  Eeverence  knows  me  better 
than  they  do;  nor  have  I  less  confidence  in  you  than  in  them.  Still, 
rather  than  fail  in  my  cherished  purpose,  I  assure  you  that,  if  it  be 
your  wish  to  try  me,  I  am  willing  to  rehearse  the  same  reasons  to 
your  Eeverence  which  I  unfolded  to  them,  though  I  by  no  means  en- 
treated them  with  importunity,  but  with  modesty  and  with  unpersua- 
sive  reasoning.  Eeverend  Father,  the  season  admits  of  no  delay; 
winter  is  at  the  door  and  my  health  in  consequence  of  this  and  other 
greater  anxieties  is  not  fts  robust  as  your  Eeverence  and  I  myself  might 
expect.  Therefore,  for  the  love  of  God,  kneeling  now  in  my  room, 
I  pray  you  to  say  Amen,  and  to  send  me  your  approval  as  soon  as 
possible.  What  I  have  for  its  security  I  will  send  to  you  whenever 
and  wherever  you  desire.  Meanwhile,  offering  you  my  humble,  sub- 
missive, and  unfeigned  love  and  service,  I  remain  with  confidence  in 
you,  ever  yours.  Friar  Martin  of  St.  Felix. 

Great  was  the  joy  of  the  holy  man  when  some  time  later 
the  commissary  general  notified  him  that  Fr.  Angelus  Mason 
had  given  his  consent.  The  happy  news  seemed  to  restore 
the  health  of  his  body  as  it  soothed  the  anguish  of  his  soul. 
Without  delay,  he  returned  to  St.  Bonaventure  's.  On  arriv- 
ing there  he  learned  that  a  short  time  before  another  of  his 
confreres,  Venerable  Francis  Bel,  had  suffered  martyrdom 
for  the  faith.  Now  nothing  could  longer  detain  him.  He 
hastened  his  preparation  and  before  the  end  of  the  year 
departed  for  England,  fortified  with  the  blessing  of  the 


320         -  FRANCISCANS  AND 

guardian.  After  a  perilous  voyage,  he  landed  at  Newcastle- 
on  Tyne,  and  immediately  set  out  for  Lancashire,  hoping  to 
find  his  relatives  and  to  convert  them  to  the  true  faith.  But 
God  had  decreed  otherwise.  On  the  very  night  of  his 
arrival,  he  was  arrested  on  the  suspicion  of  being  a  priest 
and  brought  before  the  magistrate,  who  without  much  ado 
had  him  thrown  into  the  city  jail. 

Owing  to  the  Civil  "War,  which  was  then  at  its  height,  the 
circuit  judges  were  prevented  from  holding  regular  sessions. 
Hence,  for  more  than  two  years,  Fr.  Martin  was  left  to 
languish  in  prison.  During  this  time,  he  endured  untold 
hardships.  The  prison  was  rank  with  filth  and  disease. 
The  rations  that  the  jailer  or  some  Catholic  friend  brought 
to  him,  were  coarse  and  hardly  sufficient  to  sustain  him. 
Many  of  his  fellow  prisoners  were  criminals  of  the  lowest 
type;  and  the  shameless  and  wicked  conversation  they  car- 
ried on  only  added  to  the  misery  and  distress  of  the  saintly 
friar.  But  he  bore  all  with  heroic  patience  and  divided  his 
time  between  prayer  and  works  of  charity.  From  time  to 
time,  Catholics  would  venture  into  the  prison  to  be  in- 
structed by  him  or  to  receive  the  sacraments  at  his  hands. 
They  were  greatly  edified  and  encouraged  by  the  self-for- 
getting zeal  with  which  he  ministered  to  their  spiritual 
needs.  Even  the  Protestants  were  at  a  loss  to  explain  how 
a  man  of  his  physical  debility  could  survive  and  even  be 
happy  amid  such  privations.  What  sustained  the  servant 
of  God,  however,  was  the  assurance  that  his  cause  was 
righteous,  and  that  in  the  end  God  would  reward  him  with 
the  crown  of  martyrdom.  How  earnestly  he  yearned  for 
this  singular  grace  we  learn  from  a  letter  of  Fr.  William 
Anderton,  the  same  through  whose  intervention  he  had  been 
admitted  into  the  Franciscan  Order.  Fr.  William  was  then 
engaged  on  the  missions  and  succeeded  in  visiting  his  im- 
prisoned confrere.  ''During  the  entire  period  of  his  con- 
finement," he  wrote,  "he  manifested  a  great  desire  for 
martyrdom,  and  always  declared  that,  drawn  especially  by 
this  hope,  he  had  crossed  over  to  England. ' ' 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  321 

At  length  the  long  looked-for  moment  arrived.  The 
crushing  defeat  which  Cromwell 's  Ironsides  inflicted  on  the 
king's  forces  at  Naseby  had  decided  the  war  in  favor  of 
the  parliamentarians.  Hence,  the  Puritans  had  free  scope 
to  satisfy  their  vengeance  on  the  Catholics.  The  judges  soon 
after  resumed  their  regular  circuits  and  early  in  August, 
1646,  came  to  Lancaster.  Among  the  first  to  be  summoned 
before  them  Avas  Fr.  Martin.  On  being  asked  whether  he 
was  a  priest,  the  friar  fearlessly  replied  in  the  affirmative 
and  also  admitted  that  he  was  a  Franciscan.  More  was  not 
needed,  and  without  further  questioning  the  judges  con- 
demned him  to  suffer  the  death  of  a  traitor.  On  hearing  his 
sentence,  Fr.  Martin  raised  his  eyes  to  heaven  and  with  a 
loud  voice  exclaimed,  "Praise  be  to  God!  Thanks  be  to 
God!"  Meanwhile,  the  guards  approached  and  conducted 
him  back  to  prison. 

Owing  probably  to  the  fact  that  the  prisons  were  over- 
crowded, the  execution  of  Fr.  Martin  and  of  the  two  secular 
priests  who  had  been  condemned  with  him,  was  fixed  for  the 
following  morning.  At  daybreak,  therefore,  on  August  7, 
the  three  priests  were  taken  from  their  dungeon  and  led  out 
into  the  streets.  Here  they  were  fastened  to  hurdles  and 
amid  the  taunts  and  jeers  of  a  blood-thirsty  rabble  hurried 
off  to  the  place  of  execution.  The  humility  and  patience 
with  which  the  friar  bore  these  insults  elicited  the  secret 
sympathy  of  many,  so  that  even  Protestants  were  heard  to 
remark,  "If  ever  there  was  a  true  martyr  in  the  Roman 
Church,  this  is  one. ' ' 

The  first  to  mount  the  ladder  that  rested  against  the 
scaffold  was  Fr.  Martin.  When  the  executioner  had  placed 
the  rope  about  his  neck,  the  martyr  addressed  the  people. 
Having  told  them  that  he  was  about  to  suffer  death  solely 
for  being  a  Roman  Catholic  priest,  he  began  to  discourse  on 
the  only  true  and  saving  faith.  Suddenly,  however,  at  a 
signal  from  the  sheriff,  the  executioner  overturned  the  lad- 
der. It  is  related  that  the  rope  broke  and  that  the  martyr 
fell  unconscious  to  the  ground.     But  he  soon  came  to  and 


322  FRANCISCANS  AND 

rose  to  his  feet.  At  the  command  of  the  sheriff  he  reas- 
cended  the  ladder,  and  patiently  suffered  the  executioner  to 
readjust  the  rope.  Then  with  a  sudden  jerk  th'e  ladder  was 
again  thrust  aside,  and  the  friar  hung  suspended  between 
heaven  and  earth.  Immediately  he  was  cut  down  and  the 
bloody  work  began."  When  the  executioner  seized  his  heart, 
the  martyr  was  heard  to  invoke  the  name  of  Jesus.  "He 
praised  God  in  life,"  Mason  concludes,  "he  called  upon  God 
in  death,  and  after  death  he  enjoys  God  in  everlasting  hap- 
piness."^^ 

12.  The  head  of  the  martyr,  we  learn  from  Hope  (p.  228),  was  pre- 
served in  the  Francsican  friary  at  Douai  till  the  French  Revolution,  when 
the  friars  were  compelled  to  seek  refuge  in  England.  The  Franciscan  Sis- 
ters at  Taunton  possess  one  of  his  arm-bones. 

13.  Mason,  p.  208.  Fr.  Mason  is  the  last  of  this  period  whose  cause 
of  beatification  was  introduced  on  December  4,  1886,  and  was  advanced  a 
step  farther  in  1900.  See  Acta  Minorum,  Vol.  VI,  pp.  49  seq.,  and  Ortolanl, 
De  Causis  Beatorum  et  Nervorum  Dei  Ordinis  Minorum,  p.  14. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

CONCLUSION 

Franciscans  in,  prison  during  the  Commonwealth — Early 
reign  of  Charles  II — Peace  and  prosperity — Death  of 
Fr.  John  Gennings — Activity  and  influence  of  the  friars 
— The  Maryland  Mission — Franciscans  and  the  Titus 
Oates  Plot — Two  martyrs:  Ven.  John  Wall  and  Yen. 
Charles  Mahoney — Four  die  in  prison — Ominous  signs — 
— Fall  of  King  James  II — Franciscans  forced  to  flee 
from  the  continent — Many  of  their  number  seized  and 
imprisoned — Peace  restored — The  province  at  the  height 
of  prosperity — Two  Franciscans  die  in  prison:  FF.  Paul 
Atkinso7i  and  German  us  Holmes — Decline  of  the  prov- 
ince— Subversive  State  laws — The  French  Revolution — 
Franciscans  flee  to  England — Their  number  gradually 
decreases — The  province  canonically  dissolved. 

The  reader  may  wish  to  know  how  the  English  Francis- 
cans fared  after  the  execution  of  Charles  I  and  the  ultimate 
triumph  of  Puritanism.  We  will  conclude  our  narrative, 
therefore,  with  a  brief  account  of  the  Second  Province  dur- 
ing the  remaining  two  centuries  of  its  existence.^  Naturally, 
the  eleven  years  that  Oliver  Cromwell  and  the  Puritans 
were  in  power  proved  another  period  of  sufferings  for  Cath- 
olics. Among  the  many  priests  who  languished  in  the 
prisons  at  this  time  we  find  a  number  of  Franciscans.  Under 
the  year  1653,  the  chapter  register  has  the  following  entry : 
' '  Three  fathers  have  suffered  imprisonment,  and  have  with 
danger  of  their  lives  undergone  their  trial,  showing  great 
constancy."     Another  entry  was  made  three  years  later, 

1.  The  following  facts  and  figures  are  compiled  chiefly  from  Thad- 
deus,  The  Franciscans  in  England. 

323 


324  FRANCISCANS  AND 

reading : ' '  Since  the  last  chapter  three  fathers  have  suffered 
imprisonment."  One  of  these,  it  seems,  was  Fr.  Lewis 
"Wrest.  After  a  long  confinement  in  Lancaster  Castle,  he  at 
last  obtained  his  freedom  and  returned  to  Douai,  where  he 
died  in  1669,  aged  73  years.  Whether  the  other  friars  were 
also  set  at  liberty  or  were  left  to  die  a  lingering  death  in 
prison,  is  not  known. 

The  Catholics  looked  forward  to  brighter  days  when  the 
royalist  party  at  last  gained  the  upper  hand  and,  in  1660, 
placed  Charles  II  on  his  rightful  throne.  The  popularity 
which  the  Franciscans  enjoyed  at  this  time  and  later,  is  best 
seen  from  the  many  bequests  made  to  them,  and  from  the 
fact  that  so  many  young  men  applied  for  admission  into 
their  ranks.  Since  1649,  not  less  than  175  new  members 
were  added  to  the  province,  so  that  by  the  end  of  the  century 
the  total  number  of  friars  (living  and  deceased)  amounted 
to  228,  of  whom  89  were  still  living  in  1700.  Their  zeal  for 
the  strict  observance  of  the  Franciscan  vow  of  poverty  was 
truly  remarkable.  In  1676,  the  superiors  of  the  province 
drew  up  a  solemn  declaration,  in  which,  among  other  things, 
they  protested :  ' '  We  repudiate  all  property  in  common  as 
well  as  in  private,  admitting  only  the  use  of  what  is  neces- 
sary, given  us  either  as  a  free  gift  or  alms  or  as  retribution 
for  our  labors  :  not  as  if  we  had  a  strict  right  to  those  things, 
but  being  content  with  their  simple  use. ' '  The  instructions 
with  which  the  provincial  in  1704  sent  Fr.  John  Capistran 
Eyston  to  England,  show  what  spirit  guided  the  friars  on 
the  mission.  "Be  courteous,  civil,  and  obliging  to  all,"  he 
tells  the  young  priest,  "familiar  with  few,  and  with  none 
of  the  other  sex.  Compassionate  the  poor,  helping  them 
when  you  can.  Be  tender  and  careful  of  the  sick.  .  .  . 
Omit  not  daily  mental  prayer,  nor  an  annual  recollection. 
.  .  .  Let  not  your  manners  contradict  your  doctrine,  nor 
life  and  actions  belie  your  words.  Be  zealous  for  the  con- 
version of  souls,  but  temper  zeal  with  prudence  and  dis- 
cretion. Meddle  as  little  as  may  be  with  the  temporal  con- 
cerns of  your  flock,  or  economy  of  families ;  and  be  not  for- 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  325 

ward  in  recommending  servants  or  making  matches.  Re- 
member, perfect  expropriation  is  our  great  treasure,  which 
we  must  endeavor  to  preserve  by  renouncing  all  dominion : 
in  the  case  of  money  we  ought  to  be  very  moderate ;  and  in 
all  matters  of  moment  have  recourse,  if  possible,  to  the 
Superiors. ' ' 

About  six  months  after  the  accession  of  Charles  II,  the 
friars  on  the  mission  received  the  sad  news  that  the  founder 
of  their  province,  Fr.  John  Gennings,  had  passed  away. 
After  the  first  provincial  chapter  in  1630,  he  at  once  re- 
turned to  England  and  continued  to  labor  there  as  mis- 
sionary till  1659.  In  that  year,  he  attended  as  commissary 
provincial  the  chapter  held  in  London.  Being  now  over 
ninety  years  of  age,  and  wishing  to  prepare  for  his  last  houi*, 
he  asked  and  obtained  leave  to  return  to  the  friary  at  Douai. 
Here,  on  November  12,  1660,  he  passed  quietly  to  a  better 
life.  He  had  served  three  terms  as  provincial  and  had  re- 
peatedly held  the  offices  of  custos  and  definitor.  In  1651,  he 
published  liis  Institutio  Missionariorum,  in  which  he  be- 
queathed to  his  brethren  the  fruits  of  his  long  experience  as 
missionary  in  England.  The  records  describe  him  as  "a 
man  of  exemplary  and  blameless  life,  steadfast  in  his  pur- 
pose, and  beloved  by  all." 

Of  the  Franciscans  conspicuous  for  their  activity  and 
influence  we  mention  onlj'  a  few.  Fr.  Francis  Davenport, 
whom,  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War,  parliament  had 
designated  as  greatly  responsible  for  the  increase  of  popery, 
was  still  exerting  a  wide  influence,  especially  at  court.  In 
1670,  he  effected  the  conversion  of  Anne,  the  Duchess  of 
York ;  and  it  was,  without  doubt,  largely  owing  to  him,  as 
one  of  Queen  Catherine 's  chaplains,  that  Charles  II  was  at 
heart  so  favorably  disposed  toward  Catholics.  Fr.  Francis 
died  in  1680 ;  he  had  spent  fifty-seven  years  on  the  missions 
and  had  held  the  highest  offices  in  the  province.  Another 
learned  and  influential  Franciscan  at  this  time  was  Fr.  John 
Baptist  Canes.  Among  his  writings  we  note  especially  Fiat 
lux,  a  controversial  work  on  the  religious  troubles  then  agi- 


326  FRANCISCANS  AND 

tating  England.  Selected  by  the  Catholic  party  to  defend 
the  faith  against  Dr.  Stillingfleet,  the  learned  friar  wrote 
and  published  his  Diaphanta  or  Exposure  of  Dr.  Stilling- 
fleet's  Arguments  against  the  Catholic  Religion.  Other  dis- 
tinguished writers  on  historical,  ascetical,  and  dogmatical 
subjects,  were  Fr.  Angelus  Mason,  who  is  known  especially 
for  his  valuable  Certamen  Seraphicum,  the  work  which 
formed  our  chief  source  of  information  regarding  the  five 
Franciscans  who  suffered  during  the  Civil  War;  Fr.  John 
Cross,  who  wrote  on  ascetics  and  Scotistic  philosophy ;  and 
Fr.  Antony  Le  Grand,  who  is  recognized  as  "the  first 
philosopher  of  the  age  that  reduced  the  Cartesian  system 
to  the  method  of  the  schools." 

*  But  the  second  province  did  not  restrict  its  activity  to 
England.  In  1672,  the  chapter  answered  the  appeal  of  the 
Jesuits,  who  were  then  serving  the  English  Catholics  in 
the  Maryland  colony,  by  sending  FF.  Polycarp  Wicksted 
and  Basil  Hobart  to  their  assistance.  Three  more  friars 
joined  the  American  mission  in  1675.  They  labored  here 
with  the  sons  of  St.  Ignatius  in  "fraternal  charity  and  offices 
of  mutual  friendship,"  as  the  Jesuit  Records  put  it,  until 
the  year  1589,  when  the  English  crown  passed  over  to 
the  Prince  of  Orange,  and  the  prosperity  of  the  Maryland 
mission  came  to  an  end.  Lord  Baltimore  was  deposed  as 
governor  of  the  colony,  and  in  1792  Protestantism  was  estab- 
lished there  by  law.  But  the  Catholic  missionaries  did  not 
forsake  their  flock.  In  fact,  as  late  as  1699,  two  Franciscans 
again  set  out  for  the  English  colony.  One  of  these,  Fr. 
James  Haddock,  was  active  there  till  his  death  which  oc- 
curred in  1720. 

During  the  religious  persecution  that  broke  out  in  1678, 
in  consequence  of  the  Titus  Oates  Plot,  two  Franciscans  died 
on  the  scaffold  for  their  faith  and  sacred  profession,  while 
four  underwent  the  hardships  of  prison  life.  Venerable 
John  Wall,  known  in  religion  as  Joachim  of  St.  Anne,  was 
laboring  successfully  in  Worcestershire  when,  in  December, 
1678,  he  was  arrested  at  Rushock  Court.    On  his  refusal  to 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  327 

take  the  oaths  of  allegiance  and  supremacy,  he  was  cast  into 
the  jail  at  Worcester.  Here  he  languished  till  the  follow- 
ing April,  when  he  was  brought  to  trial  and  condemned  to 
death.  Four  months  elapsed,  however,  before  orders  were 
given  for  his  execution.  The  people  of  AVorcester  were  op- 
posed to  it,  maintaining  that  till  then  no  one  had  been  exe- 
cuted in  their  city  solely  for  being  a  priest.  Like  so  many 
others,  Fr.  John  was,  therefore,  taken  to  London,  in  order 
that  the  more  serious  charge  of  complicity  in  the  supposed 
plot  against  the  king's  life  might  be  proved  against  him. 
How  little  his  enemies  succeeded  in  their  base  design,  we 
learn  from  a  letter  which  the  friar  wrote  to  a  friend  of  his, 
on  July  18,  shortly  after  his  return  from  London.^ 

Sir: — With  my  service  I  return  you  thanks  for  the  twenty  shil- 
lings. I  am  safe  returned  from  London,  whither  I  was  sent  to  be 
examined  by  Mr.  Gates  and  Bedloe,  Dugdale  and  Prance,  to  see  if 
any  of  them  had  anything  against  me,  as  guilty  of  concerning  these 
great  disturbances  of  the  times.  I  was  very  strictly  examined  by  all 
four,  several  times  over,  in  that  month  I  stayed  in  London;  and  thanks 
be  to  God  I  was  after  the  last  examination,  publicly  declared  innocent 
and  free  of  all  plots  whatever  by  Mr.  Bedloe,  who  examined  me  last; 
and  he  was  so  kind  to  me,  that  he  told  me  publicly  that  if  I  would 
but  comply  in  matter  of  religion,  that  he  would  pawn  his  life  for  me 
that  for  all  I  was  condemned  yet  I  should  not  die.  I  was  also  offered 
the  same  after  my  first  examination,  though  I  should  have  been  never 
so  guilty  if  I  would  have  done  what  was  against  my  conscience.  But 
I  told  them  I  would  not  buy  my  life  at  so  dear  a  rate  as  to  wrong  my 
conscience.  How  God  will  dispose  of  all  of  us  that  are  condemned 
none  know.  Some  think  it  is  concluded  we  all  must  die;  and  yet, 
because  it  will  not  appear  grateful  in  the  eyes  of  rational  and  moral 
men  to  see  us  die  merely  for  conscience '  sake,  I  have  been  several  times 
informed  from  London,  since  I  came  down,  that  if  possible  some  will 
do  their  best  to  bring  some  of  us,  some  way  or  other,  into  a  plot,  though 
■we  have  all  at  London  been  declared  innocent  after  strict  examination. 
God's  will  be  done!  The  greater  the  injury  and  injustice  done  against 
us  by  men  to  take  away  our  lives,  the  greater  our  glory  in  eternal 
life  before  God.  This  is  the  last  persecution  that  will  be  in  England; 
therefore  I  hope  God  will  give  all  His  holy  grace  to  make  the  best 
use  of  it.     All  these   things  have  been   sufficiently  prophesied  long 

2.  This  letter  and  other  details  regarding  Venerable  John  Wall  are 
taken  from  Hcpe,  Franciscan  Martyrs  in  England,  pp.  2s6  seq. 


328  FRANCISCANS  AND 

since;  and  I  do  no  way  question  the  truth,  though  it  is  like  some  will 
suffer  first,  of  whom  I  have  a  strong  imagination  I  shall  be  one. 
God's  will  be  done  in  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven,  and  in  mercy  bring 
me  happy  thither! 

I  subscribe,  sir,  your  faithful  servant, 

Francis  "Webb.3 

The  holy  man's  presentiment  that  he  would  be  among 
the  first  of  the  condemned  priests  to  die  for  the  faith  proved 
correct.  Feelings  of  joy  and  gratitude  thrilled  his  noble 
soul  when  he  learned  that  his  execution  would  take  place 
on  August  22.  Prayer  and  acts  of  penance  filled  out  the 
remaining  days  of  his  life.  Shortly  before  his  martyrdom 
he  received  the  sacraments  at  the  hands  of  a  priest  who  ob- 
tained permission  to  visit  him  in  prison.  On  the  appointed 
morning,  he  was  drawn  on  a  hurdle  to  Red  Hill,  near  Wor- 
cester, and  martyred  in  the  usual  bloody  manner.  His 
mangled  remains  M^ere  laid  to  rest  in  the  Catholic  church- 
yard of  St.  Oswald,  while  his  head  was  given  to  Fr.  Leo 
Randolph,  who  had  it  conveyed  to  the  brethren  at  Douai. 

Ten  days  before,  another  Franciscan  suffered  death  for 
the  same  cause  in  another  part  of  England.  It  was  Vener- 
able Charles  Mahony,  a  member  of  the  Irish  Province.  Ap- 
parently, he  had  been  ordained  priest  only  a  short  time 
before,  and  was  on  his  way  to  Ireland,  when  the  ship  on 
which  he  sailed  stranded  on  the  coast  of  Wales,  Wliile  he 
was  traveling  through  this  region,  government  spies  de- 
tected his  priestly  character  and  arrested  him.  At  his  trial, 
which  took  place  at  Denbigh,  Fr.  Charles  openly  confessed 
that  he  was  a  priest.  Accordingly,  he  was  condemned  to 
death  and  sent  to  Ruthin,  where  on  August  12,  1679,  he 
obtained  the  crown  of  martyrdom. 

Of  the  four  Franciscans  who  were  thrown  into  prison 
during  this  persecution  only  one,  Venerable  Francis  Levi- 
son,  is  known  to  have  at  last  succumbed  to  his  sufferings. 
He  died  in  prison  on  February  11,  1680,  after  fourteen 

3.  He  went  by  the  assumed  names  Francis  Webb  and  Francis  John- 
son. Dodd  in  his  Church  History  of  England  (Vol.  Ill,  p.  400)  mentions 
him  by  the  latter  name. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  329 

months  of  close  confinement.  Fr.  Marian  Napier  was  tried 
and  sentenced  to  death ;  but,  in  1684,  the  sentence  was  com- 
muted to  banishment  for  life."'  The  other  two  Franciscans, 
FF.  Bernardine  Langworth  and  Francis  Osbaldeston,  after 
languishing  in  prison  for  six  years,  were  set  at  liberty  when 
James  II  ascended  the  throne.^ 

Despite  these  persecutions,  the  number  of  Franciscans 
in  England  increased  from  year  to  year,  so  that  the  sphere 
of  their  activity  assumed  broader  dimensions.  In  1687,  nine 
new  residences  were  established  in  different  parts  of  the 
country.  That  same  year,  in  November,  it  was  decided  that 
a  friary  should  be  erected  next  their  chapel  at  Lincoln's 
Inn  Field,  in  London.  Work  on  the  new  building  pro- 
gressed rapidly,  and  the  following  spring  ten  friars  were 
assembled  there,  wearing  the  religious  garb  and  performing 
all  the  exercises  of  a  well-regulated  community.  Soon  after, 
the  novices  were  placed  there,  and  nine  new  members  were 
added  to  the  community.  But  the  friars  were  to  enjoy  their 
peace  ^nd  happiness  only  a  few  weeks.  On  Sunday,  Novem- 
ber 4,  1688,  the  very  day  on  which  William  of  Orange, 
landed  with  his  army  at  Torbay,  on  the  coast  of  Devonshire, 
a  mob  attacked  the  friary  and  would  have  destroyed  it  and 
expelled  its  inmates  had  not  the  king  sent  a  body  of  armed 
soldiers  to  disband  the  mob.  Meanwhile,  the  Prince  of 
Orange  had  marched  northward,  so  that  the  king  was  com- 
pelled to  leave  London  and  rally  his  forces  at  Salisbury. 
Anxious  for  the  safety  of  the  Franciscans,  he  requested 
them  to  quit  their  friary  for  the  present. 

The  fall  of  James  II  and  the  accession  of  William  of 
Orange,  a  staunch  adherent  of  Calvinism,  spelled  hard  times 
for  the  Catholics  in  England.  Together  with  their  Belgian 
confreres,  many  of  the  Franciscans  took  refuge  on  the  con- 
tinent.    "So  great,"  writes  Thaddeus,  "was  the  rush  to 

4.  On  Dodd's  list  (ibidem,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  400)  he  appears  under  the 
assumed  name  William  Russel.  ^.  a  ^^ 

5  FF  Charles  Parry  and  Gregory  Jones  also  are  commemorated  as 
having  suflfered  imprisonment  at  this  time  for  their  priesthood;  the  former 
by  Dodd  (ibidem.  Vol.  Ill,  p.  400),  the  latter  by  Hope  (ibidem,  p.  243)  on 
the  authority  of- Oliver.    The  matter  is  not  mentioned  by  Thaddeus. 


330  FRANCISCANS  AND 

Douai,  that  there  was  not  room  enough  for  all  the  fathers 
who  continued  to  arrive,  and  the  clerics  had  to  be  sent  out 
to  different  houses  of  the  Order  in  Belgium,"  Others,  how- 
ever, defying  all  danger,  remained  on  the  missions  and 
continued  to  minister  to  their  persecuted  countrymen.  Of 
these,  six  are  known  to  have  been  seized  and  imprisoned. 
Fr.  Gervase  Cartwright,  after  being  condemned  to  death 
and  languishing  in  the  jail  at  Leicester  for  twenty-eight 
months,  was  at  last  banished  by  the  Prince  of  Orange.  FF. 
Francis  Hardwick  and  William  Lockier  were  thrown  into 
Newgate  in  the  beginning  of  the  revolution ;  they  were  still 
there  in  September,  1689,  when  the  chapter  appointed  the 
former  titular  guardian  of  Canterbury  and  summoned  the 
latter  to  Douai,  where  he  was  master  of  novices  in  1691. 
FF.  Daniel  Selby  and  Lewis  Grimbalson  were  confined  for 
several  months  in  York  Castle  and  Fr.  Bernardine  Barras 
in  the  dungeon  of  Kidcote  prison. 

With  the  return  of  more  peaceful  times,  many  of  the 
Franciscans  went  back  to  England  and  resumed  their  mis- 
sionary labors.  During  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, the  province  prospered  as  perhaps  never  before  or 
after.  In  1756,  it  counted  about  100  members,  of  whom,  in 
1758,  at  least  40  were  active  in  England.  Accordingly, 
many  new  missions  could  be  taken  over,  to  the  great  joy  of 
the  people  who  welcomed  the  friars  with  open  arms  and  by 
generous  benefactions  sought  to  relieve  their  temporal 
needs.  Thus  the  Franciscans  were  enabled  to  rebuild  some 
of  their  friaries,  notably  those  at  White  Hill  and  York.  In 
the  latter  place  and  at  Edgbaston  they  conducted  a  school 
for  boys ;  while  the  one  at  Osmotherley  was  soon  restored  to 
its  former  flourishing  condition. 

Among  the  writers  of  this  period  we  mention  in  particu- 
lar FF.  Antony  Parkinson  and  Pacificus  Baker.  The  for- 
mer compiled  a  valuable  history  of  the  Franciscan  Order 
in  England,  which  we  have  had  frequent  occasion  to  con- 
sult in  the  course  of  our  narrative.  It  was  published  in 
London,    in    1726,    under    the    title    Collectanea    Anglo- 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  331 

Mhioritica  or  A  Collection,  of  the  Antiquities  of  the  Eng- 
lish Franciscans.  Fr.  Baker  wrote  a  number  of  ascetical 
treatises.  One  of  his  works,  entitled  Scripture  Antiquity, 
is  of  a  controversial  nature.  "Without  much  originality," 
Thaddeus  observes,  "all  these  works  are  remarkable  for 
unction,  solidity,  and  moderation." 

Before  recounting  the  decline  and  ultimate  dissolution 
of  the  province,  we  must  commemorate  two  friars  who  suf- 
fered and  died  in  prison  at  this  time.  In  1698,  Fr.  Paul 
Atkinson  was  elected  definitor  of  the  province  and  was  sum- 
moned to  London  to  take  part  in  the  deliberations  of  the 
chapter  then  in  session.  But  he  failed  to  appear,  and  on 
further  inquiry  it  was  learned  that  he  had  been  apprehended 
for  being  a  priest,  and  on  his  refusal  to  take  the  required 
oaths  he  had  been  condemned  to  perpetual  imprisonment  in 
Hurst  Castle.  His  death  which  occurred  thirty  years  later, 
on  October  15,  1729,  is  thus  recorded :  "In  Hurst  prison, 
Hants  died  the  venerable  Confessor  of  the  faith  and  of 
Christ's  priesthood.  Father  Paul  Atkinson,  formerly  pro- 
fessor of  theology,  definitor  of  the  province,  and  a  jubi- 
larian  in  the  Order,  who,  during  a  continual  martyrdom  of 
thirty  years,  reflected  honor  on  his  prison,  on  our  Province, 
and  on  the  English  mission ;  who,  though  not  cut  off  by  the 
persecutor's  sword,  still,  as  we  piously  trust,  did  not  forego 
the  palm  of  martyrdom.  Wherefore  we  do  not  so  much 
recommend  him  to  the  prayers  of  our  brethren  as  propose 
him  as  a  model  for  their  imitation." 

During  the  religious  persecution  revived  by  the  Stuart 
rising,  in  1745,  Fr.  Germanus  Holmes  was  seized  and  cast 
into  Lancaster  Castle.  The  provincial  necrology  commemo- 
rates him  in  these  terms :  ' '  The  veneral  confessor  of  Jesus 
Christ,  Germanus  Holmes,  at  one  time  professor  of  philos- 
ophy in  our  college  at  Douai,  who,  after  suffering  various 
insults  from  the  insolent  dregs  of  the  populace  on  account 
of  his  priestly  character,  was  consigned  by  the  magistrate 
to  Lancaster  Castle  and  loaded  with  iron  chains,  where  for 
four  months  he  fought  the  good  fight,  and  happily,  as  we 


332  FRANCISCANS  AND 

hope,  finished  the  course  of  his  mortal  life,  having  con- 
tracted the  fever  through  the  filthiness  of  the  place ;  but  not 
without  suspicion  of  poison  administered  to  him  by  the 
wicked  woman  who  brought  him  his  food." 

The  decline  of  the  Second  English  Province  became 
noticeable  about  the  year  1770.  In  assigning  the  causes, 
Thaddeus  points  to  the  State  laws  then  enacted  against 
religious  communities,  which  in  turn  necessarily  meant  a 
scarcity  of  vocations  to  the  Order  and  a  gradual  falling  off 
in  men  and  means.  In  1773,  the  French  government,  in  its 
hostile  attitude  toward  the  Church  and  her  institutions,  pro- 
hibited youths  from  making  religious  profession  before  they 
had  completed  their  twenty-first  year ;  and  in  1790,  another 
law  was  passed,  pursuant  to  which  no  one  under  French  rule 
was  permitted  to  take  vows  in  a  religious  Order.  Douai  in 
Flanders,  where  the  English  Franciscans  had  their  novitiate 
and  house  of  higher  studies,  was  at  the  time  subject  to 
France,  and  to  their  dismay  the  friars  saw  how  these  ob- 
noxious State  laws  were  beginning  to  effect  the  province. 
Already  in  1779,  they  had  no  clerics  to  take  up  the  theolog- 
ical course,  and  by  1790  the  province  numbered  only  forty- 
eight  members. 

Matters  came  to  a  head  when  the  French  Revolution 
broke  out.  On  December  19,  1791,  the  Franciscans  were 
placed  under  arrest  in  their  house  at  Douai,  and  two  years 
later,  on  August  9,  an  order  was  issued  by  the  civil  authori- 
ties giving  the  friars  one  day 's  time  to  leave  the  town.  With 
a  heavy  heart,  the  sixteen  resident  friars  departed  for  Bel- 
gium and  took  up  their  abode  in  a  house  at  Tongres,  which 
the  Carmelites  generously  placed  at  their  disposal.  But 
darker  days  were  yet  to  come.  The  triennial  chapter  of  the 
province,  held  in  London,  on  July  31,  1794,  had  jiist  made 
provisions  for  the  house  at  Tongres,  when  in  the  midst  of 
the  deliberations  the  friars  of  that  place  arrived  with  the 
sad  news  that  their  stay  in  Belgium  was  no  longer  possible, 
since  French  hordes  had  invaded  the  country  and  were 
threatening  the  lives  of  priests  and  religious. 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  333 

Henceforth  restricted  to  their  mother  country,  the  Eng- 
lish Franciscans  did  all  in  their  power  to  avert  the  total 
extinction  of  the  declining  province.  Friends  were  not 
wanting  to  encourage  them  by  offering  them  material  as- 
sistance. A  novitiate  was  opened  at  Osmotherley  and  later 
at  Aston.  But  applications  for  the  order  continued  to  be 
few  and  far  between.  In  1813,  the  province  numbered  only 
twenty-one  members,  and,  in  1838,  but  nine  were  left  to 
attend  the  chapter  held  at  Clifton.  At  this  chapter,  Fr. 
Leo  Edge  worth  was  elected  provincial.  But  for  obvious 
reasons  the  minister  general  hesitated  to  confirm  his  elec- 
tion and  appointed  a  commissary  in  the  person  of  Fr.  Fran- 
cis Hendren.  Meanwhile,  the  Sacred  Congregation  of  the 
Propaganda  had  taken  the  matter  in  hand  and,  in  January, 
181:1,  Rt.  Rev.  Thomas  Joseph  Brown,  0.  S.  B.,  Vicar  Apos- 
tolic of  the  Welsh  district,  notified  the  Franciscans  that  the 
Holy  Father  had  appointed  him  their  visitor  apostolic. 
With  this  provision,  the  English  friars  ceased  to  exist  as  a 
province. 


It  will  be  remembered  that  we  set  out  to  relate  the  story 
of  the  English  Franciscans  during  the  first  century  of  the 
Protestant  Reformation.  The  reader,  we  are  confident,  can 
now  judge  for  himself  how  wholly  unfounded,  as  far  as  the 
sons  of  St.  Francis  are  concerned,  is  the  charge  that  schism 
and  heresy  was  possible  in  England  because  the  so-called 
"old  Orders"  had  degenerated  and  looked  on  with  indif- 
ference when  the  great  upheaval  began.  That  the  Francis- 
cans were  the  first  to  feel  the  smart  of  Henry  VIII  's  venge- 
ful fury,  can  be  accounted  for  solely  by  the  fact  that  they 
were  the  first  who  dared  to  set  themselves  against  his  law- 
less policy,  and  that,  on  account  of  their  traditional  loyalty 
to  the  Holy  See  and  their  acknowledged  influence  with  the 
masses,  they  were  rightly  designated  by  those  in  power  as 
the  most  formidable  and  inflexible  defenders  of  truth  and 
justice. 


334  FRANCISCANS  AND 

With  them  imprisoned,  banished,  or  executed,  it  was  a 
comparatively  easy  task  for  Queen  Elizabeth  to  complete 
the  work  of  her  father  and  sever  the  last  tie  that  bound 
England  to  the  Church  of  Christ.  All  during  her  reign, 
however,  the  few  surviving  Franciscans  were  waiting  for 
an  opportunity  to  rally  their  scattered  forces.  Hence,  when 
James  I  ascended  the  throne  and  the  Catholics  began  to 
breathe  more  freely,  the  friars  banded  together  and  estab- 
lished what  is  known  as  the  Second  English  Province.  We 
have  seen  how  the  members  of  this  new  foundation  were 
imbued  with  the  true  spirit  of  St.  Francis,  and,  like  their 
forefathers  of  the  first  province,  labored  even  unto  imprison- 
ment and  death  for  the  defense  and  propagation  of  the  true 
faith.  Five  of  their  number  died  as  martyrs  during  the 
terrible  struggle  that  ended  with  the  downfall  of  English 
royalty  and  the  proclamation  of  the  Puritan  Common- 
wealth. Thus,  throughout  the  century,  from  Henry's  at- 
tack on  the  divine  rights  of  the  Holy  See  down  to  the  na- 
tion's renunciation  of  the  king's  authority,  the  Franciscans 
never  for  a  moment  wavered  in  their  defense  of  a  just  and 
holy  cause.  It  is  safe  to  say  that,  humanly  speaking.  Protes- 
tantism would  never  have  gained  the  ascendancy  in  Eng- 
land, if  in  the  beginning  of  the  religious  upheaval,  the  bulk 
of  the  clergy  had  been  as  faithful  and  fearless  in  defending 
the  Catholic  faith  as  the  Franciscans. 

The  End. 


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Gasquet,  Cardinal  Aidan,  O.  S.  B.:    Henry  VIII  and  the  English 

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Heimbucher,  Dr.  Max:  Die  Okden  und  Kongregationen  der  Kath- 
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Hill,  O'Dell  Travers:    English  Monasticism  (London,  1876). 

Hope,  Mrs.:    Franciscan  Martyrs  in  England  (London,  1878). 

Hope,  Mrs.:    The  First  Divorce  of  Henry  VIII  (London,  1894). 

Holzapfel,  P.  Dr.  Heribert,  O.  F.  M. :  Geschichte  des  Franzis- 
KANERORDENS  (Freiburg,  1909). 

Hudson,  Rev.  H.  N. :   Shakespeare:  His  Life,  Art,  and  Characters. 

Hueber,  P.  Fr.  Fortunatus,  O.  F.  M. :    Menologium  (Muenster,  1698). 

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Lingard,  John,  D.  D.:  History  of  England  (New  York,  1879), 
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Little,  A.  G. :  Studies  in  English  Franciscan  History  (London, 
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Magliano,  Fr.  Panfilo  da,  O.  F.  M. :  St.  Francis  and  the  Francis- 
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Mason,  Fr.  Angelus  a  S.  Francisco,  O.  F.  M. :  Certamen  Seraphicum 
Provinciae  Angliae  (Quaracchi,  Italy,  1885). 

Monumenta  Franciscana,  Vol.  I,  ed.  J.  S.  Brewer  (London,  1858) ; 
Vol.  II,  ed.  Richard  Howlett  (London,  1882). 

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Parkinson,  Fr.  Anthony,  O.  F.  M.:  Collectanea  Anglo-Minoritica 
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Pocock,  Nicholas:  Records  of  the  Reformation  (Oxford,  Claren- 
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THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION  337 

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INDEX  OF  NAMES  AND  PLACES 


Abbington,  Benedictine  abbey  of  7, 
15 

Abel,  Blessed  Thomas,  156 

Abrojo,  friary  at,  253 

Ackrick,  Fr.  Thomas,  200 

Adam  de  Marisco,  Fr.,  10,  19,  22 

Adam  of  Exeter,  Fr.,  22 

Adam  of  York,  Fr.,  25 

Agnellus  of  Pisa,  Blessed,  2,  4,  5,  7, 
S,  13,  19 

Albert  of  Pisa,  Fr.,  4,  8,  13 

Albert  of  Sartiano,  31 

Alcala  de  Henflres,  105 

Alexander,  master  of  Poor  Priests' 

Hospice,  5 
Alexander  of  Hales,  Fr.,  25 
Allen,  Cardii^l  William,  175,  204 
Anderton,  Fr.  William,  226,  315 
Anglesey  in  Wales,  friary  at,  9 
Antwerp,  friary  at,  33 
Ara  Coeli,  friary  of.  196,  206 
Arthur,  Prince  of  Wales,  27,  29,  106 
Arturus,  Fr.,  a  Monasterio,  211 
A.  S.  Augustino,  Fr.  William,  276 
A.   S.   Edmundo,   Fr.  Lawrence,  225 
Aske,   Robert,   65 

A.  S.  Thoma,  Fr.  Bonaventure,  229 
Atkinson,  Fr.  Paul,  331 
Augu.stine,  St.,  79 
Augustinians,  11 
Aylesbury,  friary  at,  9 

Bacon,  Fr.  Roger,  24,  180 

Baker,  Fr.   Paciflcus,  330 

Baltimore,  Lord,  326 

Barklay,  Fr.  Alexander.  173 

Barnes,  Mr.  Robert,  207,  208 

Barras,  Fr.  Bernardine,  33,  330 

Bartholomew  Anglicus,  Fr.,  25 

Barton,  Elizabeth,  44,  46,  92,  121 

Bartholomew  of  Pisa,  Fr.,  8,  9 

Baseham,  20 

Basset,  Fr.  Gregory.  201 

Baynard's  Castle,  113 

Becket,  St.  Thomas  a,  29 

Becky,  James,  61 

Becmachen,  Isle  of  Man,  friary  at, 

10 
Bedford,  friary  at,  175 
Bedingfield,    Sir   Edmund,    125.    134 
Bel,  Yen.  Francis,  226,  230,  276,  292 
P.elchiam,   Yen.   Thomas,   65,   72 
r.ennewith,  friary  on  island  of,  6 
Bergaigne  Fr.  Joseph,  224,  297 


Bernardine  of  Siena,  St.,  31 
Berwick,  friary  at,  9,  15 
Beverley,  friary  at,  9,  67 
Blackfriars  in  London,  104 
Blue  Coat  School  (Ch'-ist  Hospital), 

180 
Bodmin,  friary  at,  9 
Boleyn,  Anne,   35,   39,   65,   88,   110, 

144 
Bonaventure,  Fr.  (Sir  Thomas  John- 
son), 62 
Bonaventure,   St.,  4,  23,  224 

Bordeaux,  14 

Boston,  friary  at,  176 

Bosworth,  27 

Bourchier,  Fr.  Thomas,  49,  62.  72, 
141,  189 

Bourchier,  Henry,  Earl  of  Essex,  36 

Brasenose  College,  Oxford,  234 

Bremand,   83 

Brewer,  J.   S.,  11,  12,  19,  23 

Bridgenorth,  friary  at,  9 

Bridgwater,  friary  at,  9 

Brigittines,  82 

Bristol,  district  of,  9 

Bristol,  friary  at,  9 

Brookby,  Ven.  Antony,  65,  sqq. 

Brougham,  friary  at,  10 

Broughton,  friary  at,   9 

Brown,  Fr.  Antony,  169 

Brown,  Rt.  Rev.  T.  J.,  O.  S.  B.,  333 

Browne,  Dr.  George,  52,  53 

Bruges,  chapter  of,  32 

Buckdcn,  104,  116,  12i 

Buckley,  Ven.  Godfrey,  194,  204 

Bukkery,  Fr.  Henry,  59 

Bullaker,    Ven.    John    Baptist,    226, 
251 

Bungey,  Fr.  Thomas,  180 

Bury,  St.  Edmunds,  friary  at,  9 

Butler,  Fr.  William,  23 

Caesariu.s,  Fr.,_4 
Cambray,  82 

Cambridge,  district  of,  9,  226 
Cambridge,  friary  at,  8,  9,  13 
Cambridge,  university  of,  23,  29 
Camm,  Dom  Bede,  O.  S.  B.,  149 
Campeggio,  Cardinal,  111,  114 
Canock  in  Staffordshire,  243 
Canon,  Fr.  John,  25 
Canterbury,  College,  Oxford.  78 
Canterbury,  friary  at,  4,  5,  8,  9,  14, 
19,  32 


339 


340 


FRANCISCANS  AND 


Capon,  Dr.,  Abbot  of  Hyde,  47,  192 
Cardiff,  friary  at,  9 
Carlisle,  friary  at,  9 
Carmarthen,  friary  at.  9 
Carter,  Fr.  Richard,  62 
Carthusians,  11,  65 
Castro,  Fr.  Alfonso,  65,  190 
Catherine  of  Aragon,  Queen  of  En- 
land,   33,  35,  75,  87.  325 
Cauley,  Mr.  William,  260 
Chapman,  Fr.  Thomas,  180 
Chapuys,  Eustace,  36,  39,  45,  60,  88, 

118,  123,  132 
Charles  V,  Emperor,  29,  39,  45,  60, 

81,  102 

Charles  I,  King  of  England,  230  sqq. 
Charles  II,  King  of  England,  263 
Chester,  friary  at,  9 
Chesterton  in  Warwickshire,  38 
Chichester,  friary  at,  9 
Clarke,  Dr.  John,  30 
Clement  VII,  Pope,  44 
Clements,  Margaret,  103 
Cobbett,  William,  43 
Colchester,  friary  at,  9,  15 
Collier,  Fr.  Lawrence,  195,  202 
Colman,    Fr.    Christopher    (Combe J, 

82,  230,  241,  244 
Colman,  Fr.  Robert,  2,  25,  226 
Cologne,   university  of,  23 
Compter  prison  in  London,  272 
Consell,  William,  185 

Conv 

Cornelius,  Fr.,  52 

Cornhill,  friary  at,  6 

Cort,  Ven.  Thomas,  65 

Cotton,  Fr.  Walter,  22 

Coventry,  Fr.  Giles,  174,  176 

Coventry,  friary  at,  9,  15,  18,  177 

Cranmer,    Thomas,    Archbishop    of 

Canterbury,  36,  91,  118,  186 
Cromwell,  Oliver,  323 
Cromwell,   Thomas,   38,   39,  45,  52, 

53,  55,  63,  88,  178,  187 
Crosby  Place,  83 
Cross,  Fr.  John,  326 
Croydon,  palace  of,  106 
Curson,  Fr.,  143 
Curwin,  Dr.,  35,  38,  40 
Cuthbert,  Fr.,  4 
Cyprus,  Isle  of,  34 


Dodd,  Rev.  Charles,  30,  44,  72,  83, 

141,  161,  234 
Dominicans,  6 
Doncaster,  friary  at,  9 
Dorchester,  friary  at,  226 
Douai,  English  College  at,  234 
Douai,  friary  at,   226 
Dover,  in  Kent,  4 
Du  Boys,  29,  35 
Dugdale,  Sir  William,  18 
Dumfries,  friary  at,  9 
Du  Mont,  Francis,  297 
Dundee,  friary  at,  9 
Dunstable,    ecclesiastical    court    at, 

36 
Dunwich,  friary  at,  9 
Durham,  Bishop  of,  67 
Dutton,  Mr.,  234 

East,   Fr.   Augustine,   230 
Eccleston,  Fr.  Thomas,  2,  4,  5,  8,  10, 

12,  13,  14,  25 
Edgeworth,  Fr.   Leo,  333 
Edward  I,  King  of  England,  14,  20 
Edward  II,  King  of  England,  15 
Edward   III,   King  of  England,   14, 

15 
Edward  VI,  King  of  England,  183 
Edward,  Duke  of  Lancaster,  14 
Edward,  the  Black  Prince,  15,  20 
Elizabeth,    Queen    of    England,    61, 

130,  193,  246 
Ellis,  Fr.  Robert,  33,  174 
Elstow,  Fr.  John,  35.  39,  50,  53 
Exeter,  friary  at,  9,  251 

Fackingham,  Fr.  Nicholas,  25 
Falier,  Ludovico,  117 
Felder,  P.  Dr.  Hilarion,  16,  23,  24 
Fisher,  Bl.  John,  Bishop  of  Roches- 
ter, 29,  55,  64,  96,  117 
Fitzwater,  Fr.  Robert,  15 
Forest,   Blessed   John,   37,   38,    109, 

122,  138,  144 
Fotheringhay  Castle,  124 
Fox,  Fr.  Stephen,  80,  189,  196 
Francis  I,  King  of  France,  81 
Francis    of    St.    Bonaventure,    Fr., 

227 
Frederick  II,  Emperor,  20 
Fuller,  historian,  175 


Davenport,    Fr.    Francis,    64,    141, 

224,  225,  230 
Day,  Fr.  Nicholas,  226 
De  la  Haye,  Fr.  John,  146 
De  Marsys,  234,  258,  259,  286 
Denbigh,  328 

Dennis,  Fr.  George,  189,  196 
Digby,  H.  Kenelm,  24 
Diggs,  John,  6 


Garcias,  historian,  162 

Gardiner,  Stephen,  Bishop  of  Win- 
chester, 184 

Garnet,  Father,  S.  J.,  204,  206,  207, 
211 

Gasquet.  Cardinal  Aidan  O.  S.  B., 
10,  20,  28,  42,  46,  53,  56,  59,  62, 
63,  180 

Gayton,   Fr.   Mathew,    15 


THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION 


341 


Gennings,  Fr.  John,  203,  204,  215, 
221,   225,   244,   246,   323 

Gerard,  F.  John,  S.  J.,  204 

Gloucester,  friary  at,  9,  15 

Godclard,  Fr.   William,  25,   289 

Godwyn,  historian,   141 

Grafton,    Richard,    historian,    159 

Grantham,   friary   at,   9 

Graunger,  Agnes,  mother  of  Bl. 
Thomas  More,  77 

Gravelines,  223 

Gray,  Fr.  John,  189,  198 

Greenwich,  friary  at,  10,  15,  56, 
141,  183,  188 

Gregory  IX,  Pope,  16,  25,  265 

Grimbalson,  Fr.  Lewis,  330 

Grimsby,  friary  at,  9,  179 

Grosseteste,  Robert,  Bishop  of  Lin- 
coln, 15,  19,  24 

Guilford,  Sir  Henry,  117 

Gunnell,  William,  84 

Haddington,  friary  at,  9 
Haddock,  Fr.  James,  326 
Hamely,  friary  at,  9 
Hammond,  Lady  Elizabeth,  130,  153 
Hardwick,  Fr.  Francis.  330 
Harpsfield,  Nicholas,  11,  35,  78,  88, 

103,  120,  121 
Harris,   Dorothy,   103 
Hartlepool,  friary  at,  9 
Hayfield,  Fr.  Thomas,  61 
Haymo  of  Faversham,  Fr.,  25 
Heath,    Ven.    Paul,    226,    229,    272, 

315 
Hemmysley,  Fr.,   169,   171 
Hendren,  Fr.  Francis,  333 
Henry  III,  King  of  England,  4,   5, 

14,  19 
Henry  IV,  King  of  England,  21,  32 
Henry  VI,  King  of  England,  22,  32 
Henry    VII,    King   of    England,    32, 

80,  107 
Henry  VIII,  King  of  England,  5,  6, 

8,  27,  34,  44,  52.  54,  75,  142,  172, 

183,  186,  187,  192 
Henry  of  Coventry,  Fr.,  15 
Henry  of  Pisa,  Fr.,  8 
Hereford,  203 
Hereford,  friary  at,  9,  15 
Hilsey,  John,  52,  55,  58,  61 
Hilton,  Fr.  John,  25 
Holmes,  Fr.  Germanus,  331 
Holt,  Nicholas,  77 
Holy    Trinity,     Benedictine     priory 

of,  5 
Holzapfel,   P.  Dr.   Heribert,   20,   25, 

31 
Honorius  III,  Pope,  4,  5 
Hope,  Mrs.,  29,  36,  45,  47,  205,  234, 

247,  275 
How,  historian,  141 


Howlett,  Richard,  18 

Hudson,  Rev.  H.  N.,  135 

Ilueber,  P.  Fortunatus,  64,  74,  202 

Hugh  of  Manchester,  Fr.,  20 

Hugh  of  Newcastle,  Fr.,  25 

Hull  Castle,  200 

Hunt,  Fr.  John,  174 

Hutton,  W.  H.,  82 

Innocent  IV,  Pope,  21 
Ipswich,  friary  at,  9 
Irwin,  John,  6 

Jackson,  Fr.  Bonaventure,  224,  225, 
226,  229,  230 

James  I,  King  of  England,  203 

James  IV,  King  of  Scotland,  80 

James  della  Marca,  St.,  31 

Jerningham,  Mr.  George,  275 

John  Capistran,  St.,  31,  32 

John,  Fr.,  10 

John  of  Kent,  Fr.,  15 

Johnson,  Sir  Thomas  (Fr.  Bonaven- 
ture), 67 

Jones,  Fr.  Gregory,  329 

Joyce  of  Cornhill,  Fr.,  10 

Julius  II,  Pope,  30,  106 

Kimbolton    Castle,    104,    125,    132, 

134 
Kingston,  Sir  William,  99 
Kynton,  Fr.  John,  26,  34 

Lacy,  Henry,  Earl  of  Lincoln,  15 

Lambourne,  Fr.  Reginald,  15 

Lancaster,  friary  at,  9 

Langlois,  M.,  298 

Langton,    Cardinal    Stephen,    5,    14, 

196 
Langton,  Dr.  Henry,  14 
Langworth,  Fr.  Bernardine,  329 
Latimer,   Hugh,   141,   157,   161,   163 
Laud,  William,  Archbishop  of  Can- 

tery,  231,  232 
Laurence,  Fr.  John,  52 
Lawrence,  a  S.  Edmundo,  225 
Lawrence,  Fr.  Peter,  174 
Lawrence,  Fr.,  of  Beauvais,  4 
Layton,  Dr.  Richard,  187 
Lee,  Rowland,  55,  122 
Le  Grand,  Fr.  Antony,  326 
Leicester,  Countess  of,  14 
Leicester,  district  of,  226 
Leicester,  friary  at,  9 
Leisman,    Fr.    James,    lay    brother, 

198 
Leland,  historian,  4,  175,  176,  202 
Leo  X,  Pope,  30,  142 
Leo  XIII,  2,  168,  202 
Leon,  Fr.,  38 
Lewes,  fiiary  at,  9 
Lewis  of  Nazareth,  Fr.,  226 


342 


FRANCISCANS  AND 


Libourne    in    Aquitalne,    friary    at. 
14 

Lincoln,  friary  at,  9,  15,  176,  179 

LIngard,  Rev.  John,  28,  36,  55,  59, 
122,  233 

Lisle,  Fr.  John,  15 

Lisle,  Lord,  60 

Litchfield,  216 

Litchfield,  Bishop  of,  14 

Litchfield,  friary  at,  9,  14 

Little,  A.  G.,  10 

Llanfaes,     near     Beauvais,      friary 
at,  9 

London,  district  of,  9,  226 

London,  friary  at,  8,  9,  13,  179 

London,  Dr.,  174 

Longland,    Bishop    of    Lincoln,   35, 

117 
Loiivain,  friary  at,  196,  204 
Lybert,  Fr.,  61 
Lynn,  friary  at,  9 
Lyra,  Fr.  ^Mcholas  de,  19 
Lyst,  Fr.    Richard,  lay  brother,  38, 

39,  138,  144,  148 
Ludlow,  friary  at,  10 
Luther,  Martin,  30,  34,  81 

Mahoney,  Ven,  Charles,  323,  328 
Maidstone,  friary  at,  10,  15 
Marchant,  Fr.  Peter,  227,  318 
Marchienne,    Benedictine    abbev    of 

224 
Marcos,  Fr.,  historian,  161 
Margaret,   Queen   of  England,   14 
Maria  Henrietta,  consort  of  Charles 

I,  231,  247 
MarshaLsea,    a    London    prison,    205 
Mary   Stuart,    Queen    of    Scotland, 

194 
Mary    Tuder,    Queen     of    England. 

189,  192 
Mason,  Fr.  Angelus,  34,  37,  62,  141 
195,  202,  204,  207,  229,  230,  28l' 
243,  245,  247,  258,  275,  288,  326 
Mayhew,  Mr.  Thomas,  237 
Mechlin,  chapter  of,  32 
Melioratus,  Fr.,  2,  5 
Melton,  Fr.  William,  18 
Middleton,  Alice    (Lady  More),   75, 

83 
Middleton,  Fr.  Richard,  25 
Miller,  Richard,  7 
Mordaunt,  Lord,  154 
More,   Bl.   Thomas,   28,   30,   33    64 

75 
More,  Cresacre,  79 
More,  Margaret,  84 
Morley,  Mr.  William,  260 
Morton,  Cardinal,  173 
Mount  joy.  Lord,   118 


Napier,  Fr.  Marian,  329 

Nelson,  Fr.  N.  N.,  189,  203 
Neswick,  Fr.,  143 
Newark,  friary  at,  10,  61 
Newcastle,  friary  at,  9,  32 
Newgate,  Prison,  68,  127,  138    155 

230,  232 
Nicholas  III,  Pope,  21 
Nigram,  Fr.  Robert,   15 
Northampton,  friary  at,  8,  9 
Norwich,   friary  at,  9 
Nottingham,  friary  at,  9 

Occham,  Fr.  William,  25 
Old  Bailey,  court  of,  237,  247 
Osbaldeston,  Fr.  Francis,  329 
Osney,  Mont^stery  at,  15 
Oxford,  district  of,  5,  6.  226 
Oxford,  friary  at,  8,  9,  13,  14,  15 
Oxford,  university  of,  8,  11,  22,  23 

Palencia,  chapter,  of,   32 
Parkinson,   Fr.   Antony,   4,   5    6    7 
8,   9,    11,    14,    15,    19,   20,   21,  '22, 
23,    24,    25,    26,    31,    32,    34,    37, 
62,    63    64,    79,    174,     176,     179, 
187,  227,  330 
Paris,  Matthew,  4,  10 
Paris,  university  of,   11,   23,   24 
Parry,  Fr.  Charles,  329 
Paul    IV,   Pope,    192 
Paul  de  Trinci,  BL,  31 
Payn,  Fr.  Plugh,  52,  53,  61 
Peckham,  Fr.  John,  21 
Pecock,   Fr.,   52,   54,   58 
Pembroke,  College,  Cambridge,  24 
Penrith,  friary  at,   10 
Perrott.  Fr.  George,  226,  241,  257 

276,  318 
Peterborough,      abbey     church      at. 

134 
Peter,  Fr.,  Spaniard,  8 
Peter  of  Alcantara,  Ct.,  230 
Peter  of  Tewkesbury,   Fr.,   4,   8,   14 
Petty,   Fr.   William, "  174 
Peyto,  Fr.   William,  35,   38,  39,  40, 

52,  53,  183,  185,  192 
Philip,  II,   King  of  Spain,  20,   188, 

189,  192 
Philip,  Fr.,   10 
Pickford,     Fr.     Jerome,     225,     226 

276 
Pinchart,  Fr.,  196 
Pits,  141 

Pissotus,  Fr.  Paul  37 
Pius  V,  St.,  Pope,  195 
Plymouth,  friary  at,   10 
Pole,   Cardinal,   117,   122,   188    191 

192 
Poletius,  Dr.,  277 
Pontefract,   friary  at,   10 


TIIE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION 


343 


Poor  Priests'  Hospice  in  Canter- 
bury, 5 

Pope,  Sir  Tlionias,  47,  101,  205, 
234 

Powel,  Lady.  259,  261 

Preston,  friary  at,  9,  14 

Price,  Ellis,   162 

Ralph  of  Maidstone.  Fr.,  15 
Reading,  friary  of,  9,  174,  179 
Richard  II,  King  of  England,  21 
Richard  III,  King  of  England,  27 
Richard,  Fr.,  of  Leicester,  21 
Richard,    of    Devon.shire.    Fr.,    2,    5, 

6.  S 
Richard,  of  Ingworth.  Fr.,  2,   5,  6, 

8 
Richard  the  Norman,  Fr.,  10 
Richel.   Fr.   John.    1S9,   197 
Rich.  Fr.   Hugh,  44,  50,  52,  5.3,  88, 

121 
Richmond  in  Surrey,  32 
Richmond  in   Surrey,  friary  at,  52, 

53,  56 
Richmond    in    Yorkshire,   friary    at, 

9 
Rich,  Richard,  97 
Risby,  Fr.  Richard,  44,  88,  121 
Robert  of  Hendred.  Fr..  15 
Robinson,  Fr.,  52,  143 
Roo,  Fr.  Bonaventure,  62 
Roper,  William,  30,  SO 
Rose,  Fr.  Ralph,  25 
Roxburgh,  friary  at,  9 

Saint-German,  Christopher,  83 
Saint-Omer,      English      College     at, 

216,  251 
Salcot,   Bishop   of   Salisbury,    192 
Salisbury,  friary  at,  9,  14 
Sander,  Dr.  Nicholas.  63,  96,  104 
Scarborough,  friary  at,  9,  15 
Scotus,  Ven.  John  Duns,  24,  187 
Sebastian,  Fr.,  143 
Selby,  Fr.  Daniel,  330 
Seymour,  Jane,  186 
Shakespeare,    William,    137 
Shambles  of  St.  Nicholas,  friary  in, 

6 
Sharpe,  Fr.  Richard,  181 
Sharshille,  Fr.  William.   15 
Shrewsl)ury,  friary  at,  9,  13,  176 
Shrewsbury,  Earl  of,  66 
Simon  of  Montfort,  18 
Sixtu.s  IV,  Pope,  32 
Smithfield,   138 
Smith,  Leonard,  60 
Solomon,  Fr..  10,  12,  13 
Somer,  Fr.  John,  25 
Somerset,  Duke  of,  186 
Southhampton,  friary  at,  9,  10,  54, 

183 


Speed,  historian,  175 

Spalman,  Sir  Henry,  29 

Spencer,  F.  John,  S.  J..  275 

Squire,  F.  Edward,  S.  J.,  313 

Stafford,  friary  at,  9,  176,  178,  203 

Stafford,  Fr.  John,  172 

Stamford,  friary  at,  9,  20.  61,   176 

Standish,  Fr.   Henry,   26,   196 

Standish,  Fr.  John,  189,  196 

Stanwey,  Fr.  Oliver.   15 

Stanney,  Fr.  William,  203.  204 

Stapleton,    William,   67,    78,    85,   86 

Stillingfleet,  Dr.,  326 

Stoke,  friary  at,  9 

Stone,  J.  M.,  37,  44,  53,  54,  59,  60, 

159,  192,  233,  288 
Storrens,  Fr.  John,  194,  201 
Stow,  John,  historian,  38,  171 
St.    Bartholemew's     Hospital,     163, 

179 
St.     Thomas    Waterings,     25,     171, 

208 
Suffolk,  Duke  of,  123,  124 

Tailer,  Thomas   (Ven.  John  Baptist 

Bullaker),  253 
Talbot,  Fr.  John,  226 
Temple-Broughton,     Manor     House 

of,  292 
Thaddeus,    Fr.,    10,    32,    168,    204, 

221,   227,   228,   243.   245 
Thomas,  Fr.,   Spaniard,  8,  Fl 
Timbs,  John,  29,  134  / 

Toledo,  convent  of  Poor  Clares  at, 

107 
Topcliffe,  199,  207,  209 
Tower  Hill,  102 
Travers,  John,  6 
Traversham,  Fr.  Thomas,  22 
Tunstal,  Cuthbert.  59,  122,  200 
Turneham,  Fr.   Robert,  20 
Tyburn,  48,  269 
Tyssington,    Fr.    John,    22 

Vaughn,  Stephen,. 53 

Vincent  of  Coventry,  Fr.,   10,   15 

Wadding,  Fr.  Luke,  2,  4,  9,  141, 
195,  315 

Wadsworth,  James,  247,  200 

Waire,  Fr.  John,  169 

Waler,  Fr.  John,  15 

Wall,  Ven.  John  (Joachim  of  St. 
Anne),  323,  326 

Walsingham,  friary  at,  9.  15,  175 

Walter,  de  Burgh,  Fr.,  10 

Walton,  William.  202 

Ward,  F.  William,  232,  234,  241, 
258 

Ware,  friary  at,  9,   14,   173 

Warham,  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, 46 


344 


FRANCISCANS  AND 


Warrington,  friary  at,  10 

Warwick,  Earl  of,  14 

V>'pbb,   Francis,    (Ven.   Jolin   Wall), 

328 
Weever,  historian,  175 
Westminster,  37 
Wicksted,  Fr.  Polycarp,  326 
Wiclif,  John,  28 
William,  Fr.,  1,   15,   20,   22 
William  of  England,  Fr.,  1 
William  of  Esseby,  Fr.,  2,  7 
William  of  Florence,  Fr.,  3 
William  of  London,  10 
William  of  Nottingham,  Fr.,  13 
William  of  York,  Fr.,  15 
William,    Prince    of    Orange,    326, 

329 
Willoughby,  Fr.  Giles,  230 
Willoughby,  Lady,  131 
Winchelsea,  friary  at,  9 
Wichelsey,  Fr.  John,  15 
Winchester,  friary  at.  9,  10 
Wisbeach,  Castle,  205 
Wiseman,  Mrs.  Jane,   207,   208 


Wolsey,   Cardinal,   35,    82,   86,    111, 

141 
Wolward,  Fr.  Thomas,   23 
Wood,    Antony,    historian,    4,    6,    7, 

23,  141,  ISO,  195,  231,  234 
Woodcock,   Ven.  Martin,   311 
Woodford,  Fr.  William,  22 
Wood,  Fr.,  178 
Wooton,   Mr.,   237 
Worcester,    friary    at,    9,    14,    179, 

226 
Wrest,  Fr.  Lewis,  227,  324 
Wright,  Thomas,  175 
Wriothesley,     historian,     158,     159, 

161,  162 
Wriothesley,   Sir  Thomas,   62,   63 

Yarmouth,  friary  at,  9 
York,  district  of,  9,  226 
York,  friary  at,  9.   15 
Tpres,  friary  at,  226 

Zarmestre,  Fr.,  15 


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